The Triune God: Rich
in Relationships
Jürgen
Moltmann
WHEN
we hear the names, Father and Son and Holy Spirit, we sense that in
the mystery of God there must be a wondrous community. It is
the one
name of
God in which “the Father, and the Son and the Holy Spirit”
are so different that they are named successively, yet bound together
with the conjunction “and.”
When
we want to emphasize the
oneness
of the divine mystery we usually use the term “trinity;”
when we want to emphasize their difference, we use “triunity.”
Regardless
of the terminology we use, we hold that God is no single Lord in
Heaven who rules everything, as a temporal ruler would. Nor do we
mean some sort of cold power of providence who determines all and
cannot be affected by anything. Remember, the triune God is a
social
God, rich in internal and external relationships.
It
is only from the perspective of the trinitarian God that we can claim
that “God is Love,” because love is never alone. Instead,
it brings together those who are separate while maintaining their
distinct characters. From the perspective of the triune God, one can
say, along with Dietrich Bonhoeffer, “only a suffering God can
help.” The God who is with us and for us in his suffering love
can understand us and redeem us.
There
are two classic Christian images of the Trinity which can prove
useful both in sermons and in teaching. The first is the
amazing icon
done by Andrei Rublev in orthodox Moscow in the 15th century.
The
three divine persons are seated at a table. In the slight inclination
of their heads toward each other and in the gestures of their hands,
a deeper unity of the three is suggested. A chalice on the
table
symbolizes the sacrifice of the Son on Golgotha for the redemption of
the world.
The
painting originated in the story of Abraham and Sarah (Gen 1:18), who
receive and richly entertain “three men” from whom they
receive God’s promise of a son, in spite of Sarah’s (laughably)
advanced age. A later interpretation claims that the three men were
“angels,” while some claim Sarah and Abraham actually met
the triune God. Rublev omitted Abraham and Sarah from the painting,
leaving only the three “angels.” Thus in his rendition it
is impossible to tell which is the Father, Son or Spirit. In
this
way, the painting expresses the ultimate unrepresentability of the
triune God.
The
other image of the Trinity is a “Gnadenstuhl”
from the Latin Church of the Middle Ages. In it, God the Father, with
an expression of deep sorrow on his face, holds the crossbar of the
cross from which his dead son hangs. The Holy Spirit, in the
form of
a dove, descends from the Father onto the Son. Where in many
paintings of this sort the eucharistic chalice stands in the midpoint
of the three persons, here the cross stands in the middle of the
triune God. It is the breathtaking image of Easter Saturday, after
Christ was killed, but before his the redemption of the world by the
life-giving Spirit. This image of the Trinity can thus rig
resurrection htly be called the “Pain of God” or the “Death
of God.”
The
death of Christ and the eucharistic representation of its salvific
significance is in both pictures the heart of the triune God.
I know of no Christian image of the Trinity in which the cross is
missing. The redemptive cross of Christ is always deeply involved in
the divine mystery, but turns it into a
revealed
mystery. The ancient theo-paschite formula rightly exclaims: “One
of the Trinity has suffered.” I would like to add “where
one suffers , the others suffer along.” The Son suffers death in
our God-forsakenness, the Father suffers the death of his beloved Son
and the Spirit binds the other two together through unspoken sighs.
It is only by comprehending the depth of this chasm as the “pain
of God” that we can fuIly understand the incommensurable joy of
the Easter celebration of the victory of life and the beauty of the
new creation of all things.
The
history of Christ is thus a trinitarian
history, otherwise one cannot call the gospel the “Gospel of the
Son of God” (Mark 1:1). The history of Jesus is first a
Spirit-history. It is through his baptism by John in the Jordan that
the experience of the Spirit of God upon him is revealed, and with
it, the revelation of God: it was in the Spirit that he heard the
voice “You are my beloved Son.” From that point on, he knew
that he was the messianic child of God. In the Spirit it was possible
for him to refer to God as “Abba, beloved Father.” It is
thus in the Spirit that God and Jesus, the “Father” and
“Son” are both bound together, yet also uniquely
distinguished.
With
this, the Spirit-history of Christ becomes the
Christ-history
of the Spirit. The Spirit of Christ comes out of the Spirit of the
Father and just as Christ is sent from the Father, so too is his own
spirit sent to his own people and to the whole world (John 20:21-22).
This change of subject in the history of salvation is described in a
trinitarian manner in the so-called “departure speeches” in
John’s Gospel: Jesus must “go forth” (die) so that the
Paraclete may come. The Paraclete comes because Jesus asks the Father
to send the Paraclete in his name (John 14-16). Good Friday and
Pentecost are two sides to salvation: the redemption of the world out
of God-forsakenness, and the new creation of all things.
We
enter into the trinitarian history of Christ through baptism. It is
for this reason that the first confessions of faith are baptismal
confessions. The life “in the Spirit” and in “discipleship”
is the practice of faith in the triune God.
In both faith and in life, everything depends on the God-sonship of
Christ. Those who lose sight of this lose their ability to be
children of God. Those who forget this lose their future in God,
which Paul states is a “hereditary right” of the future
world. It is sonship that binds together God and Jesus and provides
the foundation for trinitarian faith. If this connection were broken,
then Jesus is merely one more good person and God is merely the
unfeeling Lord of Heaven. In the 19th century, this led to a
“Jesus-humanism.” Today it leads to an “Islamization”
of Christianity. It is only through the recognition of the triune God
that Christian dialogue with Jews and Moslem’s becomes interesting
and dialogue-worthy.
Even
more important, however, is the recognition that if Jesus were not
“God’s son,” if God were not “in him,” then his
suffering would have no divine meaning for the redemption of the
world. It would disappear into the endless history of the suffering
of murdered people. But, if “one of the trinity suffers,”
then healing can come to wounded humanity and hope can enter a dying
world.
Jesus’
prayer, “In this you may all be one, as the Father is in me and
I in him that you may be in us” (John 17:21) calls for the unity
of the Church and for ecumenism. John describes the communion of
Jesus with the “Father” not merely as “with each
other, ” or “for each other,” but “in each
other.” “I am in the Father and the Father is in me.”
Therefore, “whoever sees me, sees the Father,” for “I
and the Father are one” (John 14: 9-11, 10, 30). It is a unity
based in mutual indwelling.
The
trinitarian unity of the Son and the Father through the Spirit is a
model for the relationships of men and women in the Spirit of Christ.
The unity of the Church resides neither in the monarchy of God, nor
in God as a supreme, divine essence, but in the trinitarian communion
of God. However, this trinitarian community is so wide and so open
that the Church and the whole world can “live” within it.
The prayer of Jesus that “you may be one in us” is a prayer
that is answered. Whether we know it or not we not only believe in
the triune God, but also “live” in the triune God.
This
reciprocal, sometimes called mystical, “living in God” also
belongs to the trinitarian life: “those who live in love, live
in God and God in them” (1 John 4:6). “We in God and God in
us” is not meant merely as some sort of fleeting, mystical
rapture, but is a daily relaxing quiet and intimate “living.”
I find this picture of a mutual indwelling ever more beautiful and
convincing. The triune God is a “habitable” God: he allows
us to become one within him. If the world becomes “inhabitable”
for God, then the restless God of history comes to his rest. The
Church is an icon of the trinity. Its community of freedom
and
equality illuminates the image of the triune God. This is
best
expressed in the base communities in Latin America and in some
Pentecostal communities, communities of social justice and personal
freedom, modeled on the communities of the early church which lacked
nothing because they held all in common.
Finally,
we can move beyond the human community and into the
creation-community. The Spirit of Life holds everything together in
that it enables the various creatures to live with each other, for
each other and in each other, created through divine love and
destined for eternal joy.
Jürgen
Moltmann is Professor Emeritus of Systematic Theology at the
University of Tübingen in Germany.
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