An illustrious professor, after intimating that one would know less regarding the trinity after learning about it, then cackled, commanding his class write a report upon what they did not know.
Reeves’ main thrust seems to be the logical necessity of a trinity: Any other explanation does not fit the evidence of who God is. It is holmesian logic, that with the impossible removed, whatever remains, though improbable—or in our case, incomprehensible—must be the truth. However, this is not the whole of the argument. Reeves seems intent upon not only providing arguments against all other possibilities, but showcases a loveliness regarding the trinity, truly delighting in it.
The complexity of the trinity is a necessary expression of who God is because any other explanation—a simpler monotheism such as found in Muhammadanism, a break into polytheism, or a waltz into pantheistic thought—cannot give an adequate account of Christ as He was revealed, nor can it intrinsically assign the characteristic of father upon God while maintaining God’s transcendence.
One of the strongest arguments presented regards God’s love. If God is love, that is, if God’s intrinsic nature is one of love, and true love as opposed to self-enamoration, then relationship must exist, there must be a loved object. If this object were not eternally loved, then God could not be intrinsically loving. If creation were the object of this love, then God would be dependent upon creation’s existence for His own, since His existence is one of love. Positing a separate, uncreated object runs into a similar problem as well as bordering onto polytheism. The explanation? the trinity. God is one, but three persons; there is only one God, but He exists as a relationship, as three persons.
Reeves clearly shows that Christianity only makes sense with a trinity, and that without a trinity any other world view claiming to be Christian simply isn’t. A rather enjoyable allusion to C. S. Lewis’ Screwtape Letters even suggests that any other god’s love would be a grasping, taking love. With the trinity, God’s love is not self-interested. It is freely given, for God does not need to love something else, he is love, love existing between the Father and the Son. His love pours over. But, a singular god cannot love in this sense, cannot be love. This god’s love would have an end in mind, would, as the devil is presented in the Screwtape Letters, love only in a self-gratifying sense.
I cannot at this time remember if this point was brought up by Erickson or Reeves: The analogy of light. Light, as science discerned, is more complex than we can comprehend. It has all the qualities of being a particle and all the qualities of being a wave. Depending upon what a scientist wants to do, it may be prudent to focus on one these qualities over another. The problem, or dissonance, is that a particle cannot be a wave and vice versa. Yet light inarguably is both, and starkly refuses to be something comprehensible. It simply is. So, God is a trinity. The idea is beyond the range of some minds, perhaps even beyond human understanding; however, this does not alter the fact. God is simply a trinity, which does not mean that the idea of a trinity is simple.
Tale Told 