Trinity Sunday
representations of the Trinity are a feature of celtic art and prayer.
My Fortress ?Celtic prayer
Moltmann writes of the Gnadenstuhl: The other image of the Trinity is a "Gnadenstuhl" from the Latin Church of the Middle Ages. In it, God the Father, with an expression of deep sorrow on his face, holds the crossbar of the cross from which his dead son hangs. The Holy Spirit, in the form of a dove, descends from the Father onto the Son. Where in many paintings of this sort the eucharistic chalice stands in the midpoint of the three persons, here the cross stands in the middle of the triune God. It is the breathtaking image of Easter Saturday, after Christ was killed, but before his resurrection for the redemption of the world by the life-giving Spirit. This image of the Trinity can thus rightly be called the "Pain of God" or the "Death of God."
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Trinity represented as Father and Son embracing the Holy Spirit as woman
The Old Testament Trinity by Andrei Rublev (1360-1430)
Sites worth looking at:
The Triune God: Rich in Relationships | When we think about the Trinity, we must forget how to count. With God we don't add we multiply. It's not 1 + 1 + 1 = 3. It's 1 x 1 x 1 = 1.
The doctrine of the Trinity is not about 'the abstract nature of God,' nor about 'God in isolation from everything other than God', but about 'God's life with us and our life with each other'.
The doctrine of the Trinity is ultimately a practical doctrine with radical consequences for Christian life. Instead The doctrine of the Trinity is the result of reflecting on 'what it means to participate in the life of God through Jesus Christ in the Spirit'. God is ONE. This is emphasised throughout the Hebrew Scriptures. It is not undermined by later Christian theological reflection which developed the doctrine of the Trinity. The doctrine of the Trinity maintains that God is ONE BEING known in THREE PERSONS. The central, and crucial affirmation of Christian faith is that there is one savior, God, and one salvation, manifest in Jesus Christ, to which there is access only because of the Holy Spirit. The God of the Old is still the same as the God of the New. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trinity is worth looking at for an introduction to the trinity.
The Trinity is implicit in the Old and New Testament according to Christians, and made explicit by theological reflection. Trinitarianism has been controversial however. There are some Christians who reject Trinitarianism, and Muslims think that Christians are polytheistice (worshipping many gods) because they mistake Christian understanding of the Trinity.
Christians worship only one God - but the one God makes him/herself known as Father, Son and Holy Spirit - or in more gender neutral terms - as, for example, Creator, Redeemer and Sustainer.
The Shield of the Trinity |
