Look at me! Look at me Look at me!

"I question anyone who doesn't ask questions of themselves." ~ Me.


"I question anyone who quotes themselves."~ What I should have said


"I question myself."~ What the above two statement implies

Big Question: Why is God a Trinity? Must He be?

Me, Myself and I

I have lots of quirks. They're why I like being me so much. I am not funny when I'm trying to be (including, possibly, right now.) I wiggle my nose to lift my glasses up, because they're too heavy for my face to support passively. I write and sing songs while I walk. 


Funny word, "I". It's only one letter long, which makes me think it's rather important. So many important words are small, but only the ones that are so important that we never think about them. "I", "a", incidental words that actually reflect some very significant things in our thoughts. "a" implies a singular of a type, and a certain interchangeability, which is core to the taxonomic structure of our entire thought process. "I" implies self as separate from the world, a very important topic which deserves more public discussion. (and which is about to get it, by golly!) Words get longer as they get less important: "be" is tremendously useful, "coulrophobia" less so. 


"Me", too. Funny word, almost a third person way to refer to myself. If asked, "who backed the car over the hydrangeas?" I would point at myself and say, "me." (Actually, I would point at my brother Pierce, but my scapegoating is another point entirely.) "Me" means "him" when "him" is "I". 


It's funny to think about ones self from the outside. Can you do this? Try, for a second. Find a mirror, then try to convince yourself that the person you see is not you. (I don't actually think you can, but I'm laughing at the thought of you trying.) 


But we do.


We call this process "self-awareness." 

γνῶθι σαυτόν (Know Thyself)

Self-awareness is how I realize I have quirks, how I realize my quirks are different from other quirks and uncommon. Simply put, self-awareness is the ability to observe the thoughts transpiring in ones own mind. I am self-aware because I can know what I am thinking, that I am thinking. Moreover, I can know that I'm thinking about myself thinking about myself thinking. 


(Note: Self-awareness is not Elf-awareness, which is the ability of every American college student to memorize seasonal Will Ferrell movies between October and January)


Self-awareness is interesting because in no other situation do we have the ability to observe a system so completely. If something goes on in our head, we can know it. We can know our conscious thoughts and, with some introspection and thought to our actions and reactions, can deduce our subconscious thoughts as well. Ideally, we might be able to know everything that goes on in our head (or wherever it is that thoughts are actually going on. I say my head because that's where I see everything from.)


Being aware of our self-awareness is inherent in being aware of our awareness. If we can think about what we think, surely we can think about this thought as well. If you're having trouble keeping all the thoughts and selves straight, feel free to skip ahead to the diagram later.

Why Three?

And now we set our sights on things above. Christian doctrine has a doctrine which is not quite paralleled in any other religion (meaning that the doctrines eventually collide, a rather violent occurrence between doctrines.) It is disputed by some solely upon its seeming self-inconsistency, and defended by most on the grounds that, "we aren't meant to understand." I am referring, of course, to the doctrine of the Trinity. (Why was it so obvious? I said it right at the beginning, in huge font. Maybe you should read for comprehension.) 


Some religions claim it gives us too few gods.


Some claim it gives us too many.


Some claim it makes us too rational, trying to number God.


Some claim it makes us irrational when we can't quite.


Everybody seems to take issue with it except those to whom is is of greatest concern, and those seem to be content with glossing over it as a paradox.


Notice I said paradox, not contradiction. A paradox differs from a contradiction the same way "almost" differs from "barely". "I almost got bitten by a ravenous squid" is quite different from "I barely got bitten by a ravenous squid": they both imply a significant interaction with a ravenous squid, but in one the squid gets you, and in the other it doesn't. A paradox is the one the squid just barely misses you, and in a contradiction, you end up as squid poop.


G K Chesterton, my most favoritest author, was known as the Prince of Paradox, and for good reason. Everything he wrote was chock full of paradox, for he viewed it as an incredible opportunity. As a physicist learns about the physical world by breaking it down into bits and smashing them together, so Chesterton broke his worldview apart into bits and threw them at each other until some almost collided, and from the ensuing eruption he learned more about them. Concerning knowledge, he said 

"When we know something we bring it down to the level of our intelligence."

The nature of God is probably beyond our comprehension, it is true. But some profound things can be learned by exploring the paradoxes given to us concerning His nature. Like this one.

Where we get off

Okay, so there's this paradox: Christians claim God is three people in one essence, or three natures in one mind, or something of the sort. Why?

First things first: In Genesis 1, when God says:

"And God said, Let us make man in our image"

He did actually say it like that. He also shows up as three persons in several places in scripture, including Matthew 3:16 (at Jesus' baptism) and Hebrews 2:3-4, where each of His parts are referenced as performing separate acts. 


So He's separate. How is He one? Easy: Deuteronomy 6:4, the Shemah. It refers to God as elohiym (the plural form from Genesis), and says He is "one" (echad, meaning one or only). That's the paradox in a sentence.


If you'd like more sources, (as well as some excellent thought on the subject,) Matt Perman, of Desiring God ministries, has more detailed explanations of the origin of the doctrine in this article. I'll let his words speak for me to fill in the details, but suffice to say, God is three persons in one essence, and this seems confusing.


Why is it confusing? Because we are one person in one essence, and we don't see how it could be otherwise.


Or might we?

Me, Myself and Him

So now we return to self-awareness. How? Well, we know how we are by our self-awareness, and because Scripture tells us that God made us in his(their?) image, we ought to be able to learn things about God by looking at ourselves. We know things of God's relationship with us when we are fathers and mothers, husbands and wives. We know something of what God feels when someone sins against us, or fails to trust us. In this case, I believe we can learn by introspecting upon our introspection.


I will use a diagram to describe what I'm aiming at. Here it is.

First off, an action. In any action, there are three parts: the subject, the action and the object. Change any one of these things, and the action changes. For example, an apple falling is different from an orange falling. You could compare the two, but I hear it's hard. 


Second, observation happens on actions. I don't observe an apple, but an apple falling, an apple being eaten, an apple just sitting there and existing. To observe an apple would require me to remove the apple from all external things (like the light being reflected from it), which I can't do. I can only observe the apple as it interacts with other things. And so, in a way, I can observe not objects, but actions on objects.


In the diagram, the first action is an apple falling: Subject: apple. Action: falling. Object: I'm not that good at grammar. 


The first arrow represents a first observation: my observing (or being aware of) an apple falling. Subject: me. Action: being aware of. Object: the apple falling (notice that the object is not only the apple, but its falling.) 


Now it gets confusing. The second arrow represents myself observing myself observing the apple falling. Subject: me. Action: me. Object: me observing the apple falling. You see how this is one level up, but the object still involves the apple. 


But we must go deeper! The third arrow represents myself observing myself observing myself. Subject: myself. Action: observing. Object: myself observing myself observing the apple. I conjecture that one could remove "the apple" from the object, and all the associated thoughts would remain unchanged. When I think about myself thinking about myself thinking about an apple, the apple doesn't factor into the thought at all, that is, the subject, action and object are all fully contained in myself.


This means that if I went back further, say to( myself observing )^4 (sorry for the math, it was just getting too long to type), the action would be EXACTLY THE SAME. The subject, object and action would be identical, and so it would not be a new action. 


Now think about how this feels. When we think about ourselves thinking, it, in a way, feels like we are looking at ourselves objectively, no? We are somehow an outside observer in ourself. In fact, we can easily imagine a conversation within ourselves in this way:


"Man, I'm angry at that jerk for backing over my hydrangeas."
"Why are you angry at him? There was a piano falling at his car."
"I know it's irrational, but my hydrangeas, man! Don't you feel anything?"


I think we can all acknowledge that, at some time or another, we have had such thoughts, where we take both sides of an argument about ourselves, somehow step back and observe what we're doing objectively, removed from our passions to more reasonable location. Some may have even physically felt the sensation, akin to an out-of-body experience, where you can hear yourself talking, you know what you're saying but you yourself are listening as if in third person. I certainly have.

That is taking way too long. So what?

Okay, you're right. That took forever, but I suppose forays into our own mind should be expected to take a while. When you boil it down, you end up with this:

1. A self-aware being can observe itself

2. This being, when observing itself, can have two persons in one person in a paradoxical way

3. There are, at most, three persons present in a self-aware person when its self-awareness is fully exercised.

When we are self-aware, we only catch glimpses of ourselves, and it's difficult to form a full picture of us. I'm not sure why this is, but I'm safe in saying that nobody's perfect, so that probably has something to do with it. So we are multiple persons in fits and spasms, and those persons have a fleeting existence.

Now: assume God is a perfect being, and is self-aware. Obviously, God would have to be perfectly self-aware at all times, and therefore would always be three people in one person.

A trinity.

Interesting?

But is this reason completely removed from Scripture? I don't think so. Hebrews 1:3 calls Christ the "exact imprint" of the nature of God. I have heard it said by some philosopher (can't remember who... do you know?) that Jesus is the self-image of God, or how He sees himself. Since he is perfectly self-aware, this would make Christ the exact image of God in spirit. 1 Corinthians 2:11 says, " So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God," and says that the Spirit of God searches out His mind. This sounds more than vaguely similar to the previous conclusion. 

So we see that this bizarre line of logic actually does line up with Scripture. But what does it mean for us?

One thing it does is emphasize the equal divinity and personhood of the Holy Spirit. Christians often say, "I have the Holy Spirit in me" like he was some kind of prosthetic, or more of a power than a person. But He is not. He is God, coequal with the Father and the Son, and here with us as a helper, not just in the sense of a crutch to lean on but a person to support us. In my experience, the more aware of this I am, the more aware of everything I am, including my own sin and God.

The most apparent thing that it shows is that the doctrine of the Trinity is not contradictory, but paradoxical, that God must be a Trinity if He is indeed perfect. 

I am fascinated that reason and Scripture line up so well every time I see it happen. It's quite awesome, in the breathtaking sense, and it greatly magnifies God. It's incredible when we are able to look at God's creation (including our own minds) and reason something about Him.

But as Blaise Pascal said, 

"Reason’s last step is the recognition that there are an infinite number of things which are beyond it."

Don't try too hard to understand God. There may be a creative analogy here, a useful philosophy there, but if you try to wrap your mind entirely around someone so large as He, you'll probably break your mind. And a good mind is hard to fix.


Sincerely,


Seth

P.S.: I recognize that someone might take issue with the statement that every step back in the chain of self-observation beyond the third is identical, since the object could be always said to be "myself observing.....myself observing an apple", which would be different if the fruit were replaced. I would ask in response, "Where in Scripture does it limit God to only three persons?" They are all that is listed, but I see no reason why only three are necessarily contained in this list. Possibly the Holy Spirit is of innumerable multiplicity. Who knows. Point being, I don't think there's a danger to the Trinity if MORE are possible, only if multiple are impossible.