“The following dissertation concerning the Trinity, as the reader ought to be informed, has been written in order to guard against the sophistries of those who disdain to begin with faith, and are deceived by a crude and perverse love of reason.”(1) Thus begins Augustine’s dissertation on the Trinity, written for those whose perverse love of reason prevents a heart of faith. Perhaps this is a warning for all of us who work so hard to logically make sense of something as ineffable and mysterious as the divine nature of God. Writing over a thousand years later, Leonardo Boff intoned a similar warning: “We should never forget that the New Testament never uses the expressions ‘trinity of persons’ and ‘unity of nature.’ To say God is Father, Son and Holy Spirit is revelation; to say that God is ‘one substance and three Persons’ is theology, a human endeavor to fit the revelation of God within the limitations of reason.”(2)

If reason is conscribed by logic, then at our best, we must speak of the Trinity in analogical terms. In other words, we look for analogies from our human experience, analogical images, pictures, or descriptions that offer an analogous explanation for that which is unexplainable. For Augustine, love best illustrated the nature of the Trinity. “Now when I, who am asking about this, love anything, there are three things present: I myself, what I love, and love itself. For I cannot love love unless I love a lover; for there is no love where nothing is loved. So there are three things: the lover, the loved and the love.”(3) From this analogy, Augustine argues that God’s nature is indeed relational and personal as it is expressed in a divine community of love. It cannot be said that God is love (1 John 4:8) if God is alone and monadic. Instead, love resides both in God’s nature as a personal being and in relationship to the beloved (Jesus Christ) by love (Holy Spirit).

While at best an analogy, Augustine’s definition communicates two key scriptural truths about God: God is both personal and relational in God’s very nature. God is not a distant being, removed from Creation, but God is personally involved in creation. Indeed, God is so personally involved that God even participated in our humanity through Jesus Christ. This is what the theological doctrine of the Incarnation communicates. As a personal God, therefore, God is relational. God is love, as the Epistle of John tells us, and that love is shared in the divine community of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Indeed, through love God reaches out to the creation and calls it back into relationship through the redeeming work of Jesus Christ by the transformational work of the Holy Spirit.

While this analogy isn’t intended to answer all of our logical reasoning concerning the nature of God as Trinity, it does lead us to a vital application for the Christian life. We too, as image-bearers of God, do not reflect that image solely in our own persons by ourselves. Instead, to bear the image of God as personal, relational Trinity is to be in community with one another. Relationships, as they image God, are intended to reflect the divine community of love, redemptive and reflective of the very love of God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Therefore, we might ask, as a redeemed community of love, how ought we to reflect the reality of the Trinity in our world? How might we draw others into redeemed community and away from loneliness, isolation, and self-destruction?

To understand the Trinity is not simply to analyze it logically “through a crude and perverse love of reason.” Rather, to understand the Trinity is to live in the light of its implications for human communities. Far more than a logical construct of a paradoxical nature, the Trinity is to be the way in which we image God in this world through the community of believers—and not as isolated individuals. We are to call others into that community enfolded in the life of the Trinity—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—love, lover, and beloved in divine community.

Margaret Manning Shull is a member of the speaking and writing team at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in Bellingham, Washington.

(1) St. Augustine, “On the Trinity,” Basic Writings of St. Augustine, Volume 2, Ed. Whitney J. Oates (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 1992), 687.

(2) Leonardo Boff, Trinity and Society (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1988), 156.

(3) St. Augustine, “On the Trinity,” Basic Writings of St. Augustine, Volume 2, Ed. Whitney J. Oates (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 1992), 790.

A friend of mine describes coming to terms as a little girl with the sad thought that she would never be God’s favorite. Knowing that God had so many children, knowing that good fathers love equally, she knew her hope of being the favorite was never going to pan out.

When I first heard her say this, I smiled at the idea of a little girl worrying so seriously about God’s fairness and how it affected her. God is much more often accused of being un-fair. But the more I thought about my friend’s disappointment, the more I think this is exactly the difficulty most of us have with God—although most of us will never admit it. The unguarded sincerity of a child voices what we do not: If we are being honest, no one really wants to be seen as equal to all others.

The desire to be someone’s favorite, to the best at something, to exceed the expectations of those around us, or to be known for being better than most—at anything—has been fostered within us since birth. New mothers happily report when their toddlers are in the highest percentile in motor, social, or language skills. A child delights in winning the spelling bee; employees strive to get ahead, to be noticed, to be superior. At every turn, we are as horrified by equality as we are at mediocrity. Even if the desires remain unvoiced, we want to be the best at something. We long to be someone’s—anyone’s—favorite.

For souls in tune with this quality, there is one story Jesus tells that probably disturbs us more than others. In this parable, Jesus describes a landowner who went out in the morning and hired workers for his vineyard. All agreed upon a wage of a denarius, they were sent to the vineyard, and the work began. A few hours later, the master went out and hired more laborers for his vineyard. A few hours after this, again a few hours later, and yet again after this, he hired some more. When evening came, the owner of the vineyard called the workers forward to collect their wages, beginning with the last ones hired and going on to the first. Jesus explains, “The workers who were hired about the eleventh hour came and each received a denarius. So when those came who were hired first, they expected to receive more. But each one of them also received a denarius. When they received it, they began to grumble against the landowner. ‘These men who were hired last worked only one hour,’ they said, ‘and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the work and the heat of the day’” (Matthew 20:9-12).

Equality in this story is nothing short of offensive. Those who have worked harder and longer want only to be recognized, favored for their work, commended for their superiority over the others. But the landowner only responds with words that further offend: “‘Friend, I am not being unfair to you. Didn’t you agree to work for a denarius? Take your pay and go. I want to give the man who was hired last the same as I gave you. Don’t I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous?’” (vv. 13-15).

In this difficult parable, Jesus gives us a clear look at our definitions of injustice, our sense of superiority, and our hatred of God’s fairness when it fails to favor us. When generosity is showered on someone else, when equality shatters our sense of being on top, God’s goodness often elicits not goodness, but envy, hostility, disappointment, and anger. But the master reminds his disgruntled workers that he did exactly what was promised. It was only when they compared themselves to the others that they began to feel slighted.

Jesus proclaims the coming of a kingdom that turns this world as we know it on its head and requires a complete reframing of perspective. God’s grace is not meant to be a source of disappointment nor is God’s kingdom meant to be a hierarchy of skill and favoritism. On the contrary, God reminds us that greatness comes in ways that shock and disorient our many rules and systems. For God’s grace bestowed at any hour is generous and confrontational, the power of the Cross is scandalous and underserved, the love of the Father always boldly given and lavished. Receiving the generosity of the master, we are united with the Son in whom God is well-pleased. In his economy, we are made heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ himself. And there is no greater favoritism.

Jill Carattini is managing editor of A Slice of Infinity at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in Atlanta, Georgia.