Back Porch Theology

Trinity Sunday coming up, said to be our only feast day commemorating a doctrine. But maybe that’s not strictly true, because the Trinity is actually three persons: Father, Son and Holy Spirit, each a person of God’s Being as Christians apprehend God.

Lest anyone decide that the Trinity is hypothetical nonsense from the muddled minds of factious old bishops prescribing definitive Creeds about Undefinable Unknowable Incomprehensibles, there is reasonable [Reason a pillar of Anglican theologizing] reasonable scriptural [Scripture another pillar of Anglican theological discourse] reasonable scriptural foundation for our Christian doctrine of the Trinity. An example is our Gospel reading for Trinity Sunday Year C, day after tomorrow, John 16:12-15

12 “I have yet many things to say to you, but ye are not able to bear [them] now; 13 and when He may come -- the Spirit of truth -- He will guide you to all the truth, for He will not speak from Himself, but as many things as He will hear He will speak, and the coming things He will tell you; 14 He will glorify me, because of mine He will take, and will tell to you. 15 All things, as many as the Father hath, are mine; because of this I said, That of mine He will take, and will tell to you ...” (Young’s Literal Translation)

This is Jesus as he tells his disciples goodbye, promising that the Holy Spirit will come in his place. Granted, it’s in the Gospel according to John (that I think it was Lazarus and not John is not my issue for this morning, after all the gospel is anonymous, and after all “John” is just the title that was attached to it sometime during the second century), where “John,” who more than two generations later, sixty years on, perhaps 95 to 110 AD, extensively quotes Jesus verbatim, may be challengeable; nevertheless, we’ve canonized it as Holy Scripture the Word of the Lord, and it’s what we’ve got. Anglicanism is Scripture, Tradition, and Reason, and this is Scripture, so look at what The Man says.

Here in The Gospel according to John, Jesus distinguishes himself from God the Father. Jesus speaks of himself in an ongoing sense. Jesus distinguishes the Holy Spirit as neither himself nor the Father but someone else, a third person. Thus there are three persons in this gospel reading for Trinity Sunday. Scripturally the Trinity is Three Persons all emanating from whoever or whatever Incomprehensible God is. I’m saying that the Trinity is unquestionable.

There’s more. We can argue all day and unto the ages of ages about the gender of God, and especially about the gender of the Holy Spirit. The masculinity of the Father seems reasonably clear, and the masculinity of Jesus even more so. To us in English the gender of the Spirit may be fuzzy and arguable. Jesus spoke Aramaic (where I’m not going this or any other morning), but “John” quotes Jesus speaking in Greek, and I will go there. Jesus says of the Spirit “ἐκεῖνος” which is nominative, masculine, singular: He. Jesus does not say “it” or “she,” he says “ἐκεῖνος” He. So that settles it, the Spirit is He, eh?

Oops, hold on, wait a minute, just a sec, keep reading. Jesus says “το πνευμα της αληθειας” the spirit of truth. And “αληθειας” truth is genitive, singular, feminine. So the Spirit’s character, trait, characteristic is -- She.

Just saying.

TW+