Trinity
God is a fountain fullness of love, a water wheel flowing constantly in one direction: Father to Son, Son to Holy Spirit, Holy Spirit to Father—always outflowing, always outpoured, always giving, never taking, but only receiving what the other gives. Richard Rohr
Gregg’s Reflection
The Trinity has always been a bit fuzzy for me. I never had any good teaching on the theology of the Trinity, and don’t remember a single sermon on the topic. In fact, in my Lutheran Tribe, I’ve rarely heard the Holy Spirit preached except on Pentecost. I’ve inferred that was because Lutherans love good order and the Spirit is messy.
All of that changed when I read Richard Rohr’s The Divine Dance. Rather than persons, Rohr described relationships. The image he used of the water wheel struck me as profound. Rohr says it this way:
What our tradition believes is that God is a fountain fullness of love, a water wheel flowing constantly in one direction: Father to Son, Son to Holy Spirit, Holy Spirit to Father—always outflowing, always outpoured, always giving, never taking, but only receiving what the other gives. It would take the rest of your life to try to comprehend what that means!
Indeed it is taking the rest of my life to comprehend what that means.
The essence of the relationship is the flow of love and compassion that are the heart of God being poured out into the universe. I’ve always had a strong affinity for Spirit ever since my first encounters in the canyons and mountains of Colorado and Utah. I also encountered the Charismatic Movement when I was baptized as a Christian.
From the time Genie and I saw the movie Brother Sun, Sister Moon about Francis and Clare of Assisi, I had a strong picture of the character of Jesus the Son. But my relationship with my own father distorted my picture of God into a Judgmental Taskmaster, focused on my shortcomings, ever ready to punish me for falling short.
In Natural Church Development, Christian A. Schwarz develops what he calls the “Trinitarian Compass”. He describes how different Christian traditions have historically emphasized one person of the Trinity in a way that can become distorted if not held in balance with the others:
- Father-only emphasis often produces a religion of law, legalism, or moralism. God becomes distant, authoritarian, and judgmental.
- Son-only emphasis often reduces faith to a Christomonism, where Jesus is followed primarily as a moral teacher or example, neglecting the transcendence of the Father and the empowering presence of the Spirit.
- Spirit-only emphasis can lead to enthusiasm or Gnosticism, a preoccupation with experiences, inner light, or ecstatic phenomena disconnected from Scripture and tradition.
Schwarz warns that any exclusive focus on one Person of the Trinity leads to heresy — because it fragments the wholeness of God’s self-revelation. True Christian life and healthy church growth come from the dynamic balance of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in relationship, each continually pointing to and glorifying the other.
He calls this the Trinitarian Balance of Church Life, and his core insight is that the Trinity is not just a doctrine but the living model of how Christian community should exist: mutual love, interdependence, and outpouring.
So, wade in with me as we explore the practical implications for our lives and church communities of the Trinity. Blessings.
Journaling Prompts
When you picture the Trinity as a flow of love rather than abstract doctrine, what changes in the way you relate to God? How have you seen faith communities become unbalanced by overemphasizing one aspect of the Trinity? Rohr’s image of the water wheel of love suggests God is always giving, never taking. Where in your life do you experience that divine outpouring, and where might you be invited to receive more deeply?
Scripture
As soon as Jesus was baptized, he went up out of the water. At that moment heaven was opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him. And a voice from heaven said, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.”
Matthew 3:16-17
The angel answered: “The Holy Spirit will come on you, and the power of the most high will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God.
Luke 1:35
I and the Father are one.
John 10:30
Don’t you believe that I am the Father, and that the Father is in me? The words I say to you I do not speak on my own authority. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, doing his work.
John 14:10
Yet for us there is but one God, the Father, from whom all things came and for whom we live; and there is but one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom all things came and through whom we live.
1 Corinthians 8:6
Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.
2 Corinthians 3:17
Because you are his sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, “Abba Father.”
Galatians 4:6
There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to one hope when you were called; one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.
Ephesians 4:4-6
Ancient Writings
Those holy angels come to the knowledge of God not by audible words, but by the presence o their souls of immutable truth, i.e., of the only-begotten Word of God; and they know this Word Himself, and the Father, and the Holy Spirit, and that this Trinity is indivisible, and that the three persons of it are one substance, and that there are not three Gods but one God; and this they so know that it is better understood by them than we are by ourselves.
Augustine, The City of God, Book 11, Chapter 29
To us there is One God, for the Godhead is One, and all that proceedeth from Him is referred to One, though we believe in Three Persons. For one is not more and another less God; nor is One before and another after; nor are They divided in will or parted in power; nor can you find here any of the qualities of divisible things; but the Godhead is, to speak concisely, undivided in separate Persons; and there is one mingling of Light, as it were of three suns joined to each other.
Gregory of Nazianzus, Oration 31 (The Fifth Theological Oration), §14.
For God to be good, God can be one. For God to be loving, God has to be two, because love is always a relationship. For God to be supreme joy and happiness, God has to be three. Lovers do not know full happiness until they both delight in the same thing like new parents with the ecstasy of their first child. The Holy Spirit is the shared love of the Father and the Son, and shared love is always happiness and joy.
Richard of St Victor, from Richard Rohr, Yes, and, p. 92
The resurrected Christ breathes forth the Holy Spirit in full to the Church, so that we too can share in the divine glory that the Son and Holy Spirit possessed with the Father before the foundation of the world.
Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, I, Q. 43, Art. 5.
For the almighty truth of the Trinity is our Father, for he made us and keeps us in him. And the deep wisdom of the Trinity is our Mother, in whom we are enclosed. And the high goodness of the Trinity is our Lord, and in him we are enclosed and he in us.
Julian of Norwich, Revelations of Divine Love, Long Text, ch. 54.
Therefore we should not dispute about how it can be that God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are One God, for it is by its very nature beyond all reason, but it should be enough for us that God speaks thus about Himself and reveals Himself thus in His Word.
Martin Luther, Sermons on the Gospel of John, LW 22:132.
Modern Writings
What our tradition believes is that God is a fountain fullness of love, a water wheel flowing constantly in one direction: Father to Son, Son to Holy Spirit, Holy Spirit to Father—always outflowing, always outpoured, always giving, never taking, but only receiving what the other gives. It would take the rest of your life to try to comprehend what that means!
Richard Rohr, “Feast of the Holy Trinity with the Dalai Lama,” homily, May 26, 2013, MP3 audio.
St. Bonaventure described the Trinity as a “fountain fullness” of overflowing love. Picture three buckets on a moving water wheel. Each bucket empties out and swings back, inevitably waiting to be filled again. And it always is! Most of us can’t risk letting go or emptying out. We can't risk letting go because we aren’t sure we will be refilled. But the three Persons of the Trinity empty themselves and pour themselves out into each other. Each knows they can empty themselves because they will forever be refilled. To understand this mystery of love fully, we need to “stand under” the flow and participate in it. It’s infinite outpouring and infinite infilling without end. It can only be experienced as a flow, as a community, as a relationship, as an inherent connection.
Richard Rohr, Essential Teachings on Love, p. 39
When I can stand under the waterfall of infinite mercy and know that I am loved precisely in my unworthiness, then I can pass along mercy to you.
Richard Rohr, The Divine Dance, Page 135
Whatever is going on in God is a flow, a radical relatedness, a perfect communion between Three—a circle dance of love. God is Absolute Friendship. God is not just a dancer; God is the dance itself.
Richard Rohr, The Divine Dance: The Trinity and Your Transformation, pp. 26–27.
The doctrine of the divine unity means not only that there is but one God; it means also that God is simple, uncomplex, one with Himself. The harmony of His being is the result not of a perfect balance of parts but of the absence of parts... he does not divide Himself to perform a work but works in the total unity of His being. - From The Knowledge of the Holy
A. W. Tozer, The Knowledge of the Holy, p. 29.
When the emphasis is placed exclusively on God the Father, Christian faith degenerates into a religion of law. The God who is preached is perceived primarily as a lawgiver and judge. The result is legalism and moralism, which ultimately contradict the message of grace.
Christian A. Schwarz, Natural Church Development: A Guide to Eight Essential Qualities of Healthy Churches, p. 34
Where the focus is exclusively on the Son, Christianity is reduced to Christomonism. Jesus is proclaimed as a great moral teacher, or perhaps as a personal friend, but divorced from the transcendence of the Father and the empowering presence of the Spirit. The result is an anthropocentric faith that drifts into liberal reductionism.
Christian A. Schwarz, Natural Church Development: A Guide to Eight Essential Qualities of Healthy Churches, p. 35
When the Holy Spirit is emphasized to the exclusion of Father and Son, Christianity degenerates into enthusiasm. Subjective experiences are elevated above biblical revelation and the community of faith. This always leads into Gnostic distortions.
Christian A. Schwarz, Natural Church Development: A Guide to Eight Essential Qualities of Healthy Churches, p. 35
Every exclusive emphasis on one Person of the Trinity results in a heresy. The fullness of Christian life and growth arises only where Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are held together in dynamic balance. The Trinity is not only a doctrine to be confessed, but a reality to be lived.
Christian A. Schwarz, Natural Church Development: A Guide to Eight Essential Qualities of Healthy Churches, p. 36