Opening the Black Box

How easy it is to use the word "God" as a black box.

Photo by Milad Fakurian on Unsplash

It is one thing to accept a limitation of our understanding of God, but it’s not helpful just leaving it there. When we do this, we end up diminishing who we are as human beings created in His image.

What do I mean?

When we decide we can’t completely understand God, we then follow this with a decision not to attempt to understand him at all. We will see him as a black box of mystery, sort of like luck and chance. This is a way of avoiding responsibility. Any instructions coming from God can now be ignored.  As God loses his personality and becomes a general Force, like in Star Wars, we then see an opportunity to occupy his throne. History as well as our own lives show us it doesn’t go well from there.  

For this reason, the more we can understand about the nature of God, the better our lives can become. That’s a tall claim I know, but it actually only looks strange from the outside, not when anyone takes the plunge to open their spirit to His.

Which brings me to the topic of the Trinity. I know this is a leap. How did I get to this? Keep reading.

The general Christian position about God is that he exists in a Trinity. Each is God and God is one. Most logical people get messed up with this sort of math. I understand completely. How can anything, let alone God, be one and three at the same time?

To attempt to answer this, I don't know if my first point here is much of an argument at all, but let me state it anyway.

We are using God's numbering system.

He invented mathematics and we just discovered it.

Two plus two equals four (2 + 2 = 4) because it does. It’s written into the laws of the universe. It is a way of describing accurately what we are able see. Math is the basis of science and works in some ways like a language. In other ways, it reveals hidden realities as we study its properties, which is actually a deeper way we use language. I write to explain, but I also write to explore.

Within mathematics we can talk about randomness and probabilities but the structure in which we have these conversations only works when the mathematical foundations are precise (truthful) rather than random. Having said this, as we look at math, we can begin to see that there is more to it than just counting numbers. There are, in fact, negative numbers, a non-number called zero, not to mention infinity -- never-ending. Does this sound like anyone you might know?

Next, I think we can agree, that if God exists, he doesn't have to explain himself to himself. In fact, there are many things about God that don't make human sense. But strangely, this makes a sort of sense because, if he is real – meaning we didn't make him (which is the difference between the true God and idols) -- God can comfortably live within a Trinity or any other way he chooses without worrying about what we think about it. He knows who he is and how he works. That’s what matters.

Therefore, the concept of the Trinity, even though it is at first confusing, actually helps our finite minds understand something about God that is beyond our ability to completely grasp.

Having said this, just like zero's and infinities, God can be understood inhabiting three "persons" or "personalities."

They are distinguished based on how they each relate to you and me.

For example, we always need our Heavenly Father. Also, we always need a Savior. And yet it is wrong to think that God who is in heaven, in the role of Father and Ruler of All, stopped for a millisecond what he was doing to come down to earth and be a man for thirty-three years. And yet God was a man for thirty-three years. If God had not done this, He (God) would not have been able to save us from our sins and still remain holy at the same time. God divided himself into two and yet did not become a fraction of who he is in either role. It’s interesting that we need to understand mathematics in order to understand the fact as presented here that God is outside his own mathematics. We see this about God and time and God and the cosmos as well. Which makes this a perfect time to point out how important faith is, because it is trusting in something beyond scientific proof and human logic. We can only understand any of this if we are taught it. This is why the Bible is critical in developing strong thinking skills.

So far, I have only talked about two of the three members of the Trinity. In a future post, we will think about the One least understood.