Something a little more light-hearted this week.
It’s said that Trinity Sunday is also called ‘Heresy Sunday’ because so many ‘explanations’ on the Trinity fall into one heresy or another.
The one I heard growing up was that of H2O: when frozen, it’s ice; when liquid it’s water, when it’s gas it’s steam. But this implies God is one person manifest in three forms – rather than three persons in one God. So it doesn’t work. Joey Echano has a nice blog post that goes into this and the problems of some other analogies.
The paradox of the Trinity is that the three persons are all God and yet distinct — and yet not distinct. I don’t know. As Augustine said of the unity of the Trinity (and he was the one who came up with the doctrine in the first place):
in no other subject is error more dangerous, or inquiry more laborious, or the discovery of truth more profitable.[1]
So today I’ve written three short poems; they’re all kind of the same and yet not the same (did you see what I did there?).
I am enjoying writing these and before I’m done I hope to have written an acrostic poem, some haikus and a concrete poem (in the shape of something). I also want to dabble with some blackout poetry.
Meanwhile, enjoy these.
Three limericks on the Trinity
Student #1
I wanted to study the Trinity
For my PhD in divinity.
But my little grey cells
Were unable to delve
The mysteries of triune infinity.
Student #2
They say don’t say much on the Trinity
Lest you show a human affinity
For getting it wrong.
Student #3
Whenever you ponder the Trinity
Keep wisdom close in your vicinity,
For these masters of art
Only show you their heart
When you cloak yourself with all humility.
[1] De Trinitate, Book 1, Chapter 3, 5. Translation by Arthur West Haddon available on Logos Library: http://www.logoslibrary.org/augustine/trinity/0103.html
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