Reflections of Trinity in the natural.

As I was thinking about this one day, it struck me that if the nature of  God is truly Trinity,  we would expect to see reflections of His nature all around us.  Of course these reflections would contain only partial information. What I mean,  is that if He is Trinity and He is the creator, would He not leave clues as to who He is His in  what He created? With this insight, I started to look for what I call trinities (lower case “t”). That is, to use the working definition I used last day, to look for examples of  unity in diversity. I found them everywhere.  I call these reflections of Trinity, trinity with a lower case “t”.

 We are matter, and we  live in space and in time. Furthermore each of the three components is itself a trinity. Matter comes as solid,  liquid and gas. Time is past,  present and future,  space has three dimensions.  Some have attempted to use these 'trinities' as illustration of Trinity.  God has been compared to an egg because it has shell,  yoke and white.  The single substance we call water has three forms ice,  vapour and liquid. But of course God is not an egg, not even a 'good egg'.  Others have tried to explain Trinity in terms of functionality.  I for example am father, teacher and friend to various groups of people. But I am certainly not God, and functionality does not explain why Jesus prayed to the Father. In the end then all models are inadequate, so that though they be reflections of Him, they are  pale reflections. That is not to say that they have no use.

I need to be careful how I say this, but perhaps the closest we can get to a model of Trinity is mankind. We are in fact body,  soul and spirit. Some would prefer body,  mind and psyche.  It is my sense that this model is closer than any of the others,  because we are made in the image of the creator (thought the image to be complete seems to need both male and female parts – see below). 

So then what I am saying is that in a real sense the nature of reality is trinitarian (lower case “t” - unity in diversity). But I need to say more about the implications of this. I have suggested that we can use unity in diversity is a working model, and I want to supplement this by talking about interdependence.   We in the West tend to value  rugged north American individualism very highly.  Certainly we are born dependent, and as a necessary stage of growth we need to come out of dependence to become independent and self sufficient.  But independence is not the highest level of maturity, nor of functionality to which we can attain.  No interdependence is higher still. Interdependence is when we choose to surrender some of that independence for the benefit of the whole.  So then we can think of both Trinity and trinity as three interdependent (for want of a better word) components.

Interdependence has to be an (if not the)  essential component of  a healthy marriage. But not all marriages are healthy (you knew that right?).  I am convinced that a big part of the problem, is that we we tend to get stuck in independence and not move to the next stage of growth, to interdependence. This is where we choose to submit to one another in love (Ephesians 5:21), and allow what can too easily turn into those pesky irreconcilable differences,  to mould us in mutual submission,  into a harmony that God intends to be the highest model of who He is. Trinity and trinity then, is unity in diversity,  it is harmony not cacophony, and marriage is a watershed where we choose to grow, or remain stuck. In fact, it is here then supremely in marriage,  where in the end, we choose to allow the World to see His reflection in us, or not. I am not saying that it is easy, and it does take two. But please don't play the blame game. That's what Adam did (Genesis 3: 12). I suspect a 60/60 percent admission of blame by both sides works best!