My Trinity primer

The following is a paper I wrote for Dr. Walker's Theology and Philosophy class last fall. We read a very basic book on the history of the Trinity and then had to answer a question about it. The question was, "Is the doctrine of the Trinity still relevant today? Why or why not?" This is not an exhaustive final thought, but it does articulate my most coherent thoughts about this doctrine that's suddenly so controversial.

Adam

To defend the doctrine of the Trinity and make it relevant for today, I must turn to the 20th Century theologians. Jurgen Moltmann understood that the Trinity is a model that allows humans to know that God has suffered in the midst of human suffering. For Moltmann, the event of the cross is the seminal event in that suffering. When Jesus suffered and died on the cross, God suffered as well. The distinctness of each being of the Trinity allows Jesus to be forsaken by God and the unity of the trinity allows God’s being to experience what it feels like to be godforsaken. In a world of pain and suffering, God is a God who has suffered along side those he seeks to redeem. This echoes Karl Barth, who stressed that the Trinity dealt with God’s activity in the world. God is who he is among us in what he does. Moltmann’s theology of the Trinity was of course influenced by the holocaust and the attempt to answers questions regarding the pain and suffering that the events of World War II caused. In all this suffering Moltmann argued that even God was being self-sacrificial. The decision to disjoint the Trinity at the event of the cross was as much of a sacrifice for God as it was for Jesus.
The next theologian who did relevant work on the concept of the Trinity is Leonardo Boff. Boff uses the Trinity as a model for the ideal society. For Boff, the image of the Father, Son and Spirit being distinct yet one served as a model for the society the kingdom of God was supposed to be. Boff’s vision of the Trinity leads to a human society that exists as a community of equal brothers and sisters built on relationships of communion and participation rather than domination or oppression. For Boff, seeing one part of the Trinity such as the father as dominant over other parts of the whole allowed people to construct images of God that did nothing but reinforce the preferred social order. According to Boff, the Trinity helps show that God’s nature is one of relationships, thus helping explain God’s desire to have relationship with the human race. Finally Boff concludes that society dishonors the Trinity when it allows inequality to exist but honors the Trinity when human kind seeks to live in perfect communion with one another. The doctrine of liberation theologians such as Boff is still relevant in a world were much systematic injustice still exists.
Finally the doctrine of the Trinity carries weight in the post-modern world because it speaks to the unfathomable nature of God. Theologians discussed in the book from Augustine on to the twentieth century understood the mystery of God. They speculated on the Trinity but were cautious not to lose the mystery inherent in it. As mystic faiths such as the Kabala speak more of a faith that is not easy to explain or defend, perhaps Christianity can benefit from inviting people to ponder the nature of the Trinity rather than discarding it as an irrelevant doctrine of an archaic church.