Trinitarian Experience

My wife is Jewish and wonders at times about my belief in what, to pure monotheism, may appear to be polytheistic - the trinitarian god experience of father, son and spirit. So this morning I was thinking about my experience of god. In particular I was thinking about how we all experience god. Uniquely, freshly, each time that experience happens.

I do not believe in a monolithic god - a one-size-fits-all god. In fact I do not believe in a god that is a "thing" at all. There can be no "thingness" to a god who is all things, unless that thing is everything. And if that be the case, then each individual experience of god is perfectly that which the one experiencing it needs, wants and believes it to be. Add to this Pascal's famous axiom that "we do not see the world as it is but as we are," and the result is that we experience (see) god exactly as we are or as we need at that moment.

But how is it that we experience our world, our life and therefore our god? Simply put, we tend to describe our living realms as mind, body and spirit. I relate to my world first from what I think and know - and that informs my overall meaning making. It is the source for all meaning making - that is, it "fathers" (you women-folk in the studio audience can translate that to "mothers" or "births") meaning. Secondly, I come to know my world through my body, my physical being. This a pure flesh-and-blood experience of life incarnate - the ultimate experience of humanness. And thirdly, I experience life in wonder, and belief, and the pure miracle of the life itself that breathes in me or perhaps that breathes me.

So then, if these are our three ways of knowing, it seems only a logical extension that theologians across the centuries should describe their collective experiences of god in those same ways - as source (father/mother), as flesh (a being like us that walked and talked and lived among us) and as the spirit, the essence of life itself. The triune god, the trinity, is simply a handy dandy way of describing the channels through which one experiences god. What do you expect? We are human and cannot do otherwise. Our containerization of god in no way diminishes the all-everything-ness of the Divine. But it has gotten in the way for millions as, over time, the labels became the thing. At the end of it all, I think the Jews got it right in refusing to even speak god's name; they knew better. God's blessings to you all - in everything that may mean to each of you!