> I've heard one comedian describe the Trinity as something like apple pie, how when it's sliced the crust division is visible but the stuff inside all runs together. Defining God is something we'll never get down all the way.

The comedian was Mike Warnke. I have that particular tape. The "cherry pie" analogy is okay as far as it goes, but the idea of the Trinity that it suggests was rejected early on by the Church. That view is called "modalism" or "Sabellianism"; it basically holds that the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are not individual persons but only different earthly manifestations of the single being, God -- different masks that God wears when dealing with humans, as it were.

The problem with that view is that it neglects the relational aspect internal to God. God, as a triune being, has a natural relationship with *himself*. Relationality (as opposed to singular existence in a vacuum) is intrinsic to the very nature of God, and God expresses that in his outward relationship with creation. This is a large part of what sets the orthodox Christian view of God apart from, say, that of classical Greek philosophy, which (to make a very broad generalisation) tended to view God as remote, unified and unapproachable in his perfection.

That God is three-in-one, a relational being, has far-reaching implications for Christians in the application of doctrine to life. It means that to imitate God, we have to immerse ourselves in the lives of others instead of standing apart and aloof. We have to learn interdependence and trust, and think in terms of community instead of self. And that's it for my little theological stump speech. :-)

Iss "stumping readers since 1998" achar