The Mystery of the Trinity: Revelation of Love

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Here is how Fr. Cantalamessa explains the Mystery of the Trinity. The main premise in the explanation is that “God is Love” (1 Jn. 4:16b)

Christians believe that God is triune because they believe that God is love! It is the revelation of God as love, made by Jesus, which has obliges us to admit the Trinity. It is not a human invention. There is no love for the void, no love that is not directed to someone. So we must ask: who does God love to be defined as love? A first answer might be: He loves mankind. But we have existed for some millions of years, no more. And before then, who did God love? He could not in fact have begun to be love at a certain point in time, because God cannot change.

Second answer: Before then he loved the cosmos, the universe. But the universe has existed for some thousands of millions of years. Before then, who did God love to be able to define himself as love? We cannot say that he loved himself because to love oneself is not love, but egoism or, as psychologists say, narcissism.

Here is the answer of Christian revelation. God is love in himself, before time, because he has always had in himself a Son, the word, whom he loves with an infinite love, that is, in the Holy Spirit. In all love there are always three realities or subjects: one who loves, one who is loved, and the love that unites them.

The God of Christian revelation is one and triune because he is communion of love. Theology has made use of the term “nature” or “substance” to indicate unity in God, and of the term “person” to indicate the distinction. Because of this we say that our God is one God in three persons. The Christian doctrine of the Trinity is not a regression, a compromise between monotheism and polytheism. It is a step further that only God himself could make the human mind take.

The explanation is lifted from today’s dispatch from Zenit: ZE05052002