The Inner Life of The Christian Trinity

Christ’s personality both shows how human beings are called to live and provides insight into all three persons of the Trinity, who are One in creating and redeeming humanity, inviting people to develop whole personalities and loving relationships, where loneliness and hostility are diminished, and where individuals learn to express their uniqueness in as original a manner as the Lord’s.

While God may be said in a certain sense to remain inscrutable and beyond human knowing, nevertheless, in another sense, because of the Trinity’s direct appearance and involvement in human history, it is possible to house the Self Compasses of each Trinity member within the unity of one Godhead. This arrangement, for diagrammatic purposes, illustrates the unity of the Triune God, while at the same time differentiating between the personal identities of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

                                                                     

The individual Self Compasses show that Trinity members relate through rhythms of communication and communion, the same way that they call human beings to relate to one another and to the Trinity. If one only looks for it, the Scriptures from Genesis to Revelation pulse with examples of God as a supremely innovative agent, brimming with creative motivation and action. Conceptualizing God’s personality as three Self Compasses within a larger circle of the divine self does not imply that God is containable, but rather implies an interpersonal selfhood that allows for infinite variations of self-expression and interpersonal exchanges among Trinity members who are nevertheless one God.

God’s inscrutability lies primarily in the fact that no one can predict what the Lord will say, think, or do next, other than in the compass sense that whatever God does will not contradict the health and wholeness of his being.

The larger circle encompassing the Trinity portrays the mystery of God’s diversity-in-unity, a circle that is not a physical barrier, but rather symbolizes the one God who is all in all. The back-and-forth arrows connecting each Trinitarian member to the others indicate how each Person exists in everlasting rhythmic presence to the other two, empowering the exchange of ideas, conversations, and emotions within an overarching essence of love, expressed through caring self-transcendence that respects, delights in, knows, and wills the highest good of one another.

Some such encounters between Trinity members are recorded for our benefit in Scripture. At Jesus’ baptism in the Jordan River, the Father says, communicating his own point of view and self-identity, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” He is not talking to himself the way a person might self-reflect, but actually addressing the Son with sincere words that convey the depth of his love for Jesus. At the same moment, the Holy Spirit descends upon Jesus, anointing him with power for ministry, and then drives him into the wilderness where Christ must stand alone for a season, firming up his identity as the Son while learning to rely completely upon the Father and Spirit in preparation for his public ministry.

 

Compass psychotheology asserts that this dynamic interplay of the three Persons who are one God has always distinguished God’s essence, and will always characterize God’s relationality (theologians call this the immanent Trinity, meaning what God is outside of human history). Most importantly from the human perspective, this interplay creates a trustworthy basis for the Trinity presence as infinitely caring and intentionally creative dialogue partners across the temporal span of human history (the economic Trinity, which means God’s self-revelation in space, time, history, and personality).

Now note how the Trinity diagram focuses on the phrase “I AM.” Of all the names attributed to God in the Bible—the Lord of Hosts, the Lord God Almighty, the Holy One of Israel—there is none more revealing than “I AM,” for when God reveals this name to Moses (Ex 3:14), and Christ applies this name to himself (Jn 8:58), God means that his existence as the “I AM” transcendent Subject is the ultimate ground of being that renders all else contingent and temporal.

Finally, notice how the “I AM” of each Trinitarian Person fully indwells the others, showing the interpenetration of freely willed devotion, each Trinity member’s identity so secure, so engaged in self-transcendent love, that there is no existence apart from being one God.

In other words, each Person of the Godhead does not consider self-identity and autonomy something to be grasped at or competitively sought, but rather as foundational to adoring, cherishing, and actualizing the uttermost fulfillment of one another.

The Trinity indwells one another non-invasively and non-competitively, generating the perpetual glory of being one God, as Jesus explains: “I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one: I in them and you in me. May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me” (Jn 17: 21-23).

For more, read:

TRUSTING IN THE TRINITY: COMPASS PSYCHOTHEOLOGY APPLIED

How To Integrate Psychology and Theology

To some, it is a scandalous position; for others, even worse—it is unreasonable.

To propose, as compass psychotheology does, that psychology finds its purpose when grounded in the Trinitarian God. And that theology is distorted unless examined under the lens of psychology.

Further, compass psychotheology proposes that it is possible to summarize the God-human relationship with a two word equation. An equation developed from the Biblical salvation narrative, asserting that human beings derive their nature as persons within the loving interpersonal field of the Triune God. An equation which assumes that human beings, distinct from all other creatures, are created in the image of God and called to become persons in communion and communication with the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

The Two Word Equation for Existential Intimacy with God:

Compass psychotheology proposes that the diagram below illustrates the metaphysical foundation of human beings and the existential intimacy possible between God and every person. What does it mean, that God desires existential intimacy with each person?

We suggest that God’s most identifying trait is his existence as infinite Subject (represented by the upper case “I AM”)—a divine center of uncreated personal awareness designated by the eternal title, “I AM” (Ex 3:14, Jn 8:58). And that it is through God’s eagerness to share his essential Being that he urges each person (represented by the lower case “i am”) into a relationship of love and reciprocity.

Such loving participation in God is not pantheism, for God is the transcendent Creator, while humans are finite, non-divine creatures and never cease being so. People depend upon God’s Being as the cosmological foundation of life and truth, while God depends upon no one. “God lives in creation in a God-like way, and the world lives in God in a world-like way.”

God desires people to participate in communion with the Trinity and others. People are fulfilled to the extent that they do. This notion of God’s one-on-one participation in intimate dialogue with individuals presupposes that God is not only an immutable essence, but also a living person whose nature defines the meaning of personhood (Nah 1:4-5).

“I AM” Yearns for Relationship with “i am”

Again then, what does it mean, that God desires existential intimacy with each person? For one thing, it means that God is relational. Time after time in the Old Testament, Yahweh calls out for his people to hear his voice. He says that if they are to boast, they should boast of knowing him:

But let the man who boasts, boast of this,

That he understands and knows me.

For I am Yahweh who acts in steadfast loyalty,

Justice, and right upon the earth;

For in these things I delight—Yahweh’s word (Jer 9:23).

The Lord initiates relationships with individuals that grow over time, modulated to the person’s level of maturity and God’s own desire for affiliation. One can see this in Yahweh and his bond with Abraham. Hagar. Hannah. Samuel. David. Solomon. With the prophets. Each relationship is different; each has its own rhythm of communion and communication.

On occasion God relates as confidant or companion. With Moses, for example, “the Lord used to speak to Moses face to face, as one speaks to a friend” (Ex 33:11). With Ezekiel, Yahweh relays the reasons for his harsh judgment of his own people and discloses the pain he feels as a consequence.

Above all, God demonstrates his personal fidelity to individuals. When Jeremiah receives his call from the Lord, he is told: “Before I formed you from the womb, I knew you intimately” (Jer 1:5). The Hebrew word yada, “know,” expresses God’s longing for relational closeness, for it means to know intimately, as a man and woman know each other in marriage (Gen 4:1).

The quality of partnership, friendship, and fellowship that God desires with persons finds expression in the Greek word koinonos. This term is used in the Gospels—and by Peter, John, and Paul—to capture the intimacy of people’s participation in the divine nature. Such dialogue reveals the heart of God as reaching out to people, always seeking a faithful response.

Through the prophet Zephaniah, in a poem that could hardly be more transparent, God conveys the essence of his wish for existential intimacy:

Yahweh your God (is) in your midst.

A mighty hero who saves.

He will delight over you with joy;

He will be quiet (over you) in his love;

He will rejoice over you with singing (Zeph 3:17).

The Good News is that through Jesus Christ God has opened the doorway to friendship that starts now and lasts forever. As Jesus says, “Look! I stand at the door and knock. If you hear my voice and open the door, I will come in, and we will share a meal together as friends” (Rev 3:20).