…although I am still deeply enthralled with the various doctrines of the Trinity, I can pretty much say everything that I consider deeply meaningful about it in a couple of pages.

I’ve always thought the concept of the Trinity was utterly fascinating.  Even more so since I don’t have to concern myself with actually believing it. I don’t remember anyone ever actually discussing how it worked or what it meant in my youth.  It was just a fact, like the Resurrection.  It happened.  That was enough. 

I was told a story by an Anglican deacon studying for the priesthood. It’s supposed to be true but if not, it oughta be.  A priest once began his homily by saying, Today’s subject is the Holy Trinity.   If you already understand it then anything I say will be unnecessary.  If you don’t then I can’t possibly explain it in the time allotted.  In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. 

It’s probably not a coincidence that almost every attempt to formalize an explanation into dogma has wound up as a heresy.  All you can really do is describe it.  Three persons.  One substance.  And hope no smart aleck asks just what that actually means.   I wonder what would have happened if the church fathers hadn’t had Greek philosophy to help them conceptualize it?   Christianity was impossible without Greek philosophy.    Do people in the pews fully appreciate this?  Is that even necessary?  One can participate in the Mass without understanding just as one can use a computer without understanding how it works.  

This atheist’s advice to believers would be to treat the idea like a Zen koan.  Don’t try to logically explicate it.  Meditate on it until its fundamental paradox jolts your brain past logical thinking into intuitive insight.  (Interesting that this process works even if you don’t believe it.)    The fastest way to be barred from the Kingdom is to obsess over what it means! 

The Trinity was an utterly brilliant solution to a problem the church created for itself by exalting Christ.  And it also had the practical quality of being a bridge by which polytheists could approach the unfamiliar idea of monotheism.   

So in this limited sense I remain a Trinitarian.  Odd how it resonates so much more now than it did when I was a believer. 

Well it goes beyond person and substance.

Christian thinkers were influenced by both Middle Platonism and Neoplatonism.  

The concept of the Logos was seminal to Christian thinking.

Paul’s view of the pneuma is very close to the Middle Platonic/Stoic conception.  Not to mention his cosmology. 

The Scholastics drew heavily from Neoplatonism, especially the concept of divine transcendence, and the dichotomy between the material and the immaterial.   

Greek philosophy didn’t create Christian beliefs, but it did provide an intellectual framework.  An intellectual framework that shaped those beliefs in turn.  

Could it be that the Holy Spirit is the female side of union between the Father and the Holy Spirit, and the Son proceeding from the Father is a product of that union?

Well discussion of the Divine Feminine would definitely have to be part of the equation.  As patriarchal as both Judaism and Christianity are, they have never been able – and in some cases, willing – to completely extrude the Divine Feminine.   Eve, the shekinah, Binah, Sophia, Mary…  A beautiful eye-opening book I often recommend is Peter Schafer’s ** you do not have permission to see this link **!)   

It’s not often said very loudly but it has long been pointed out that Marian devotion is particularly popular in many regions that had strong traditions of pagan goddess worship.  Many Marian pilgrimage sites in Europe are located at places that had been centers of goddess worship. The church replaced but it also absorbed, one of the actual keys to its success.  And the further afield you got the less pretense.  

The Potosí Madonna, the Virgin of the Mountain, from Bolivia, is my favorite example. As Pachamama, the Earth Mother, the Madonna’s body is a mountain holding within it the life of the earth. As Mary, she is crowned by the Trinity hovering above her.   

** you do not have permission to see this link **

While going to and fro in the earth, and walking up and down in it (online anyway) I discovered an interesting chapter of a book discussing just this aspect, the feminine quality of the Holy Spirit.  The author seems orthodox enough but he does have some interesting things to say about the gender of the Holy Spirit in the scripture.  Read as much as you want of course, but the relevant portion is in section #2 The Gender of the Holy Spirit.

** you do not have permission to see this link **

Would actually writing a book about the Holy Spirit make me a Pneumatologist?  Perhaps in my signature line I could describe myself as a Popular Pneumatologist or perhaps as an Independent Pneumatologist.  This would acknowledge that I am not a specialist nor associated with an institution.  As well as confuse the heck out of folks who wonder what a Pneumatologist is!    

Aha!  I knew it!  Such a book must exist!  (So why were none of the academics I asked about the possible existence of such a book not familiar with it?  It seems to be considered a classic. Oh well.)       

** you do not have permission to see this link ** 

by George T. Montague, S.M., formerly Professor of Scripture at the University of St. Michael’s College, Toronto, Ontario.

This book is a commentary on all the major biblical texts dealing with the Holy Spirit, from Genesis to Revelation.  It also includes chapters on the HS and apocalyptic, the apocrypha and Qumran!   Reviewers are scandalized by its lack of an index which does increase an academic’s time in Purgatory I’m afraid. 

If you were raised as a hayseed Protestant like Your Humble Correspondent you might wonder what the designation, S.M., fully entails so I did some research.  It turns out the designation refers to the Society of Mary.  Interestingly it turns out there are two such societies, the Marianists (which includes Father Montague) and the Marists, both founded in post-Revolutionary France, both evincing a Marian spirituality, and both having a massive footprint in Catholic education and missionary work.  (And, I suspect, absolutely detest being confused for one another.)

Of course Protestants are the Masters of Sectarianism so I assumed these two bodies probably differed in both ecclesiastical polity and approach to spirituality and danged if I wasn’t correct. Generally the Marianists are more egalitarian; brothers and priests have entirely equal status, rights, and voting privileges. Priesthood is viewed strictly as a sacramental ministry, not hierarchical.  Their spiritual focus is on the love of Jesus for Mary.  The Marists began as a group of seminarians. They do admit religious brothers, but the clerics hold the central governing authority.  Once again perhaps to oversimplify, their spiritual focus is on the love of Mary for Jesus. 

Current or former RCs fell free to expand – or correct. 

I discovered this book’s existence while reading a book on the Trinity.  The web expands. 

ps While this will certainly be a valued resource this is not precisely the sort of book I would want to write.