Explaining the Holy Trinity

26 May 2025   John 15:26-16:4

“When the Advocate comes, whom I will send you from the Father, the Spirit of Truth who proceeds from the Father, He will testify to Me.”  John 15:26​

Trying to explain the Holy Trinity is trying to explain the inner life of God. If you could actually do that, you would be God. It’s kind of impossible.

We are, however, obliged to try, if for no other reason than that evangelization requires it. People want to know if God is, who God is, and what God wants.

So, what are we trying to say when we say that God is one God in Three Persons? What does it mean that these Three are one God, the same in substance, equal in power and glory?

One of the things it means is that we are persons the same way that God is a person. Each of us is able to think about ourselves; we have a perception of ourselves. Unlike any other animal, we can be the subject and the object of our thinking simultaneously. Of course, our perception is imperfect. There are things we don’t know about ourselves. We can’t explain why we think all the things we think, or do all the things we do. God’s perception of Himself, however, is perfect. God can explain everything about Himself. That is why God’s self-perception is also described as a person. God’s perfect perception of Himself, His perfect understanding of who He is and what He wants, is what we humans know as Jesus Christ, or “God the Son.” Because God is trying to communicate this to us, we call Jesus the Eternal Word of God – words being the way we humans try to communicate things: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (John 1:1).

Because we are persons the way God is a person, God has a relationship with himself. In fact, God loves himself the way we are supposed to love ourselves. It is a basic feature of mental health that to love yourself is the first step to having healthy relationships. It is hard to love others if you don’t first love yourself. Our love for ourselves is imperfect. Some people do not love themselves, may not even like themselves, at times are angry or disgusted with themselves, which is a real stumbling block for them. But God’s love is perfect. This perfect love relationship between God the Father and God the Son is what we humans know as the Holy Spirit. And it is the Holy Spirit that Jesus says He will send to us: “When the Advocate comes, whom I will send you from the Father, the Spirit of Truth who proceeds from the Father, He will testify to Me” (John 15:26). In other words, Jesus is inviting us into the real Holy of Holies, into the innermost part of the inner life of God.

God’s intention, it turns out, is to have us so close forever that the Father will not be able to think about the Son without thinking about us.

God the Son will not be able to think about the Father without thinking about us.

We will not be able to think about God without at the same time thinking about ourselves.

Likewise, we will not be able to think about ourselves without thinking about God.

That’s what it means to receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. It means eternal life starts now. It means heaven starts now.

So even when people want to “expel you from the synagogues” (16:2), when people want to strip from us the networks of community that give us meaning, hope and direction, we are not destitute, because heaven starts now. If someone holds a gun to our heads and threatens to kill us, we can say with St. Paul, “My life is hidden with Christ in God” (Colossians 3:3). “Heaven is already started for me, and you can’t take that away. But I can give that life to you.”

Evangelization requires that we be able to say something when people ask who God is, and what God wants, and what it means that God is Three yet also One. How about this: “My life is hidden with Christ in God. My life has already been taken into the life of God, and heaven has already begun. I can share that life with you. How about it?”