Head, meet desk

For spring break this year, I've decided to become a Trinitarian.

I am, of course, already a Trinitarian. My faith and theology wouldn't be complete without Father, Son and Spirit (to use non-inclusive but best-metaphor-available language.) But how the whole thing works has always been a little hazy to me. In Systematic Theology last year, I remember reading in one of our books one way we might look at the Trinity--that God is one "person" who we experience in three main and semi-distinct ways. "Oh!" I thought. "That is excellent. I pick that one." Then I read in the next line that that was widely considered to be heresy. Oops. Apparently the idea that God is three persons in Godself is pretty important.

Some people might say that there's no reason to try to convince myself of what other people say or believe. But that's not really what I'm trying to do. I think that what the community of faith over time has affirmed is important to who we are, even if we choose to look at things differently due to our own experiences. So I want to know what people say, and what makes something make sense to them that doesn't always make sense to me. It's the whole "faith seeking understanding" thing...

The reason I've been thinking about this lately is because the other day, Paige said she liked CT501, and especially the parts where we read the church fathers talking about things like the Trinity. That part of CT501 made me want to bang my head on a desk. It seemed to me like a bunch of guys claiming to know things they actually didn't. The same can be said about the human-divine nature of Jesus. But the realization that somebody actually liked that got me thinking. And I know Lauren got into the whole Trinity thing through a few classes last year. So I got three books from her--Moltmann, Gregory of Naz, and She Who Is by Elizabeth Johnson, a feminist Trinitarian. And by golly, my faith is going to spend the next week seeking some understanding. I'll let you know how that goes.