By Nicholas Norman-Krause
August 16, 2022
One of the great challenges facing the renewal of Christian catechesis in the contemporary Church is the lack of understanding, among both clergy and laypersons, of one of the most fundamental Christian doctrines: the Trinity.
In recent years, a number of surveys have revealed a quite staggering degree of uncertainty around the doctrine among American Christians. On the one hand, a strong majority American adults, when asked, affirm and ascribe to classical orthodox teaching on the Trinity. A 2020 survey conducted by Lifeway Research found that 72% of American adults agree with the belief that “there is one true God in three persons: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.” The numbers are even higher among evangelicals (96%) and persons who attend a religious service at least once or twice a month (90%). On the other hand, many of those who ascribe to the traditional doctrine of the Trinity clearly have difficulty understanding and articulating what exactly the doctrine means and entails. The same Lifeway survey found, for instance, that 59% of American adults believe the Holy Spirit is a force, not a personal being, and 52% believe that Jesus was a great teacher but not God. Perhaps the most surprising finding, at least to my mind, is that 55% of American adults believe that Jesus is the first and greatest being created by God (a belief historically deemed heretical in condemnations of Arianism), and this belief is even more widespread among evangelical Christians (65%) and those who regularly attend church (68%).
Clearly, then, there is a disconnect for many Christians who confess belief in the Trinity but lack the doctrinal literacy and theological formation necessary to understand it. Blame for this confusion lies less with laypersons and more with those charged to instruct them. At best, clergy often make vague gestures toward the doctrine in preaching and teaching, perhaps giving a brief explanation once a year on Trinity Sunday. At worst, clergy sometimes suggest, either implicitly or explicitly, that the doctrine is too conceptually difficult for common Christians to truly grasp, and so discourage them from pursuing knowledge of the Trinity altogether.
How might catechists, ordained and lay alike, confront this challenge and reintroduce the doctrine of the Trinity as an essential matter of Christian discipleship? In this three-part series, I want to suggest some ways the doctrine of the Trinity might be more effectively approached in catechesis. In what follows, I draw on my experience teaching in parish catechesis, specifically a year-long study of To Be a Christian: An Anglican Catechism for adults, where I’ve intentionally sought to incorporate reflection on and discussion of the Trinity throughout. In this post, I take up the more straightforward teaching of the biblical and creedal content of the doctrine, focusing on how catechesis is a particular formation of speech by which we learn to speak rightly of the Triune God. In the next two posts I consider teaching the Trinity in the context of prayer and moral life. This tripartite division follows the structure of To Be a Christian, which centers on the Apostles’ Creed, the Lord’s Prayer, and the Decalogue.
On the Trinity: Speaking the Triune God
I wish to propose three general principles to guide teaching on the Trinity in the context of catechesis. What I have in mind here is the specific task of catechesis, not theological, philosophical, or speculative reflection on the Trinity per se, of which there are many legitimate forms, each with their own varying principles appropriate for accomplishing their differing tasks. Instead, these three recommendations are aimed at the more narrow goal of what I call catechesis “into the Trinity,” where the aim of knowledge is contemplation and participation in the life of the divine Trinity, not simply comprehension of the doctrine’s conceptual content. In this light, I take catechizing Christians “into the Trinity” to fall somewhere between dogmatic reflection and worship, incorporating elements of both but entailing a unique mode of inquiry proper to the goals of Christian formation and spiritual maturation. Central to this formation is the catechizing of speech—learning how to rightly and coherently talk to and about the God who is Trinity.
Sources: Scripture and Liturgy, not Philosophy
One of the most noticeable differences between contemporary and early Christian writing on the Trinity regards sources. Put simply, most patristic reflection on the Trinity—and here I have in mind works like Augustine’s De Trinitate, Gregory of Nyssa’s Contra Eunomium, and Gregory of Nazianzus’s Theological Orations—were works of biblical exegesis. This is not to say they were unphilosophical. Any reader familiar with these works knows their philosophical rigor, indebtedness to the Greek intellectual tradition, and often highly speculative excursuses. Nevertheless, when it came to the fundamental sources to which patristic writers saw themselves accountable, it was Sacred Scripture and catholic liturgical practice that provided the materials with which Trinitarian reflection could proceed. Contrast this with the essential partitioning of philosophical theology and biblical exegesis evident in much contemporary Trinitarian writing (though, to be sure, this disjunction is more and more being challenged—see, for instance, Wes Hill’s Paul and the Trinity, Matthew Levering’s Scripture and Metaphysics, among others).
In catechetical discussions of the Trinity, a temptation also exists to resort first to philosophical sources—say, Platonic notions of essence and relation—rather than Scripture and liturgy. This may seem surprising. Surely most instruction on the Trinity in contemporary churches does not look like a university introduction to philosophy class. Nevertheless, a certain tendency to speak first in philosophical language and only secondly in scriptural language is, I think, quite evident. To be sure, this is the language of the creeds—substance, persons, etc.—and I do not wish to suggest the unimportance of Christian appropriation of these philosophical resources. They can be eminently useful in elucidating the meaning of Scripture. But the impulse to frame the Trinity first and foremost in philosophical terms distinct from biblical ones risks alienating persons from the source of the divine Trinity’s self-revelation in Scripture. The philosophical concepts must always serve exegesis. Augustine knew this: De Trinitate begins with four books of biblical exegesis concerning the missions of the divine persons before moving to develop an account of Triune unity and distinction in more straightforwardly speculative and philosophical terms.
If part of the goal of catechesis is the cultivation of skills for hearing and reading Scripture, then instruction in the doctrine of Trinity should not be separated from this task. Trinity, in the context of catechesis, is a “rule” for biblical reading, a way of rightly coming to see the God revealed in Scripture as Triune. Again, this is not to dismiss the important work of speculative and philosophical-theological reflection on the Trinity, nor is possible or desirable to entirely separate the philosophical from the Scriptural. My point rather is that catechesis, because it is ordered ultimately to worship and the full participation of catechumens in the life of the Church, should approach the Trinity as much as possible in the terms within which Christians commonly hear and speak to God—namely, in Scripture and liturgy.
What this means concretely is that catechetical teaching on the Trinity proceeds most effectively from consideration of specific biblical texts. In my own experience, I’ve found that it is exactly the reading of Scripture that provokes for laypersons questions about the relations of Triune persons, the divine status of Christ, the nature of the Holy Spirit, etc. Passages like the creation story in Genesis 1, the account of Jesus’s baptism in the Gospels, the prologue to John’s Gospel, Colossians 1, and others helpfully frame discussion of the Trinity in terms of the larger biblical narrative and show the important ways creedal definitions serve to guide faithful reading of Scripture.
In addition to Scripture, another important source for catechetical teaching on the Trinity is the Church’s liturgy, particularly the liturgy of baptism. It is here, after all, that we are marked by the name of the Trinity. But even more than this, reflection upon the baptismal liturgy reveals the centrality of each divine person in our salvation: baptized into the Son’s death and resurrection and marked and indwelt by his Spirit, we are made children of the Father. Similarly, in reflection upon the Eucharistic liturgy, we see that each divine person is active in our worship: the Spirit is invoked upon the gifts of bread and wine (epiclesis) to make them the Body and Blood of Christ, that, receiving them, we may be united to Christ in his own self-offering to the Father. Because these liturgies constitute the essential grammar of Christian worship, and because they are the primary means by which Christians learn to speak “Trinitarianly” in the first place, they are especially effective sources for Trinitarian catechesis.
Form: Grammar, not Metaphysics
Trinitarian metaphysics has its place, I have no desire to contest that. What I want to suggest here, though, is that the doctrine of the Trinity be approached in catechesis not so much as a metaphysical riddle to be solved but as a grammar of speech to be learned. As a kind of grammatical formation, catechesis in the Trinity seeks to bring clarity and coherence to the way Christians worship, pray, proclaim the gospel, and read Scripture. These I take to be some of the primary activities of Christian life, as well as some of the primary ways Christians come to know God. They are also fundamentally linguistic activities, modes of speaking and listening to and with God. Trinitarian catechesis succeeds when it is able to form persons such that their speaking and hearing are sufficiently cultivated so as to know God in these primary Christian activities.
One of the most effective ways I’ve taught the basics of the doctrine of the Trinity is to tell a story about the emergence of Christian worship and the grammatical paradoxes such worship produced. The story goes like this: 1) as faithful worshippers of the God of Israel, the earliest Christians were committed to monotheism and intensely alert to the dangers of idolatry; 2) the Messiah they followed claimed a kind of identity with this God, gifted them with his Spirit, and spoke of his “Father,” all three of which seemed to be divine, even as they were somehow distinct; 3) unwilling to sacrifice their commitment to monotheism, yet continuing in their worship to pray to, adore, love, and praise three persons, these early Christians seemed either unable to properly count or to be affirming a straightforward contradiction; 4) the doctrine of the Trinity emerges as a guide to speaking about the God who is one and three, without undermining divine unity or effacing or obscuring distinction, and without rationalizing the mystery of God or devolving into incoherence. The doctrine of the Trinity, in other words, is a response to a crisis of worship.
Furthermore, rather than solve this paradox by formulating a thesis or logical proof, the Church’s trinitarian dogma and creedal definitions emerged more as grammatical rules, regulative principles, or “boundary markers” within which right speech to and about God could occur (see, Khaled Anatolios, Retrieving Nicaea). For example, “What is said of the divine essence must be ascribed equally to each of the persons”; “Just as Christian truth compels us to confess each person individually as both God and Lord, so catholic religion forbids us to say that there are three gods or lords”; and so on.
The reason for this was not simply to preserve a proper apophatic sensibility about the limits of human knowledge, especially regarding the divine essence. Rather, it was the simple fact that dogma was in service of worship, prayer, proclamation of the gospel, and the reading of Scripture, each of which demands of one a kind of improvisation—the ability to “go on” speaking about God in new ways that could not be predicted comprehensively beforehand—that meant Trinitarian dogma had to be robust enough to provide continuity and coherence of speech and the flexibility necessary to allow Christians to speak to and about God faithfully in new contexts.
This way of approaching the Trinity, as a matter of the grammar of Christian speech, is particularly useful for catechesis. In preparing catechumens for the Christian life of worship, catechesis on the Trinity provides instruction in how to worship, pray, proclaim the gospel, and read Scripture in ways that reflect the Triune nature of God. As a formation in speech, catechesis is ordered to these “first-order” forms of Christian speech, seeking to render them ever more intelligible, coherent, and legible to those engaged in them.
The plain reality is that most Christians today worship, pray, proclaim the gospel, and read Scripture in decidedly non-Trinitarian (or, as in the surveys above showed, heretical) ways. If the lex orandi, lex credenda principle holds, then we should not be surprised when Christian practices of worship, prayer, etc. that are insufficiently Trinitarian produce Christians that are effectively non-Trinitarian (a contradiction in terms!). As a formation of speech, Trinitarian catechesis aims to correct this, helping people learn to speak truthfully about God. This is a very practical exercise. In my teaching, I will sometimes look at Collects from the Book of Common Prayer as examples of Trinitarian speech. Another helpful exercise is to practice articulating the Gospel message in a way that takes seriously the Trinitarian shape of redemption. Or one might practice writing prayers that are distinctly Trinitarian in shape and content. Think of these as theological “grammar lessons.” The goal of Trinitarian catechesis in this sense is both to learn the grammar of the Trinity and to learn to speak proficiently within that grammar. Indeed, part of the way one learns the former is precisely by learning the latter, which highlights the importance of the dialogical in catechetical practice. And the ultimate goal of proficient Trinitarian speech is, of course, the worship of God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in Word and Sacrament with the people of God.
Purpose: Christian Life and Worship, not Speculative Theorizing
Finally, one of the important themes I try to communicate in my own catechetical work is that the Trinity is not simply a doctrinal “add on” to the practical substance of Christian life and worship, but is the actual structure and shape of Christian life and worship itself. In other words, rather than treating the Trinity as a speculative dogmatic matter, I try to approach the doctrine of the Trinity as an elucidation of the Christian experience of God in prayer, worship, and discipleship.
The key biblical text in this regard is Romans chapter 8, which I take to be a kind of Trinitarian phenomenology of prayer, a thick description of the experience of prayer which reveals its inherently Trinitarian structure (on this, I am indebted to the work of Sarah Coakley, particularly chapter 3 of God, Sexuality, and the Self). Here, St. Paul contemplates the meaning of Christian life as life lived in the Spirit, by which he means a kind of mutual indwelling—the Spirit dwelling in the Christian, and thus, the Christian being incorporated into the divine life. As Paul says, “You are in the Spirit, since the Spirit of God dwells in you” (Rom. 8:9). According to Paul, one of the Trinitarian persons dwells in us, and it is this indwelling that unites us to the Trinity. More specifically, the means by which the Spirit incorporates us into this life is by uniting us to the Son. As Paul says, “The Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship. And by him we cry, ‘Abba, Father’” (8:15). The Holy Spirit, then, unites us to God the Son in his own filial relationship to the Father. Finally, it is this union with the Son by the Holy Spirit, effected in baptism and deepened in Eucharist, that is the fundamental ground of prayer: “When we cry, ‘Abba! Father!’ it is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ” (8:15-17); “The Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words” (8:26). In prayer, that is, the Spirit, dwelling in us, prays for and with us, incorporating us into the divine communication and communion that is the Trinity. Indeed, it is because the “Spirit of adoption” (8:15) dwells in us and unites us to the Son that we are given Jesus’s own words of address to His, and thus our, Father: “Our Father, who art in heaven.”
Romans 8 reveals the deep structure of all worship: participation in the Trinity. And it does so by showing, in very clear terms, the work of each Trinitarian person in worship. By the Holy Spirit’s dwelling in us, we are incorporated into the divine life, as we are united to Christ the Son and made to share in his intimate communion with the Father.
In my experience, once persons see the Trinitarian logic of prayer, especially as it is laid out in Scripture itself, the doctrine of the Trinity becomes less of a speculative puzzle to be solved and more of an aspect of the mystery of Christian existence to be explored. Reflection on the Trinity, that is, is actually a necessary part of every Christian’s life with God, insofar as it is a coming to terms with the very operations of prayer, worship, and Christian life.
In the following two posts, I explore a bit more what it looks like to come at the doctrine of the Trinity from the perspective of prayer and Christian moral life.
Rev. Dr. Nicholas Norman-Krause is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Institute for Studies of Religion at Baylor University and an assisting priest at Christ Church Waco. He serves as a research fellow for the IRCC.