A Digest on the Trinity - Part 11: Trinitarian Diagrams

This article is eleventh in a series called A Digest on the Trinity.

This article will provide some (hopefully) helpful diagrams to better visualise the truths of the doctrine of the Trinity, both from a pedagogical and educational standpoint.

The traditional diagram used to explain the Trinity goes something like this.

This diagram has been present throughout church history, as seen in the image below.

This diagram is useful insofar as to illustrate the six cardinal points of the doctrine:

• The Father is God.
• The Son is God.
• The Spirit is God.
• The Father is not the Son, nor the Spirit.
• The Son is not the Father, nor the Spirit.
• The Spirit is not the Father, nor the Son.
• This follows quite broadly the structure of the Athanasian Creed.

However, it is problematic, since such a diagram puts the being of God separately from the persons of God. In this model, God is something other than Father, Son and Spirit – there is a fourth “thing”, which makes it such that we now no longer have a Trinity, but a quarternity.

I suggest instead, that a helpful Trinitarian diagram should show how being God is not any different from being Father, Son and Spirit, while also showing how each person is truly and fully God in Himself (autotheos). To account for the distinctions between the persons, one simply has to map out the eternal processions amongst them.

We start with a circle. Assume that this circle represents what it means to be God. All that it is to be God is represented by this circle. Now, we place Father, Son and Spirit in this circle.

The advantage of beginning with this structure is that now we have illustrated how God is not any different from Father, Son and Spirit. Furthermore, when we consider each person individually, we note that each person is still truly and fully God.

Once we have noted this unity of simplicity, we can move on to illustrating the relations. The Father generates or begets the Son. As such, the Son is said to be generated by the Father.

The Father and Son together breathe the Spirit; the Father breathing the Spirit through the Son; the Son sharing in the breathing of the Spirit with the Father. As such, the Spirit is said to be breathed by the Father through the Son.

This completed diagram has the advantage of affirming simplicity, which is really a way of affirming Cardinal Points 1-3, while also maintaining the personal distinctions between the persons through their eternal relations grounded on the eternal processions, which affirms Cardinal Points 4-6.

Another helpful Trinitarian diagram would be a diagram that draws the link between the Trinity in itself (what we call the immanent Trinity) and the Trinity towards creation (what we call the economic Trinity). Recall that the external acts of God reflect the internal order of God. Therefore, however God acts towards creation is first grounded in the internal order of God.

We only know of the internal order of God through the way He acts externally. Therefore, we begin with the economic Trinity and reason up to the immanent Trinity.

We start with the Incarnation and Pentecost, where the Son and Spirit are manifested visibly and clearly respectively. What these two events tell us is that the God of Israel has a Son and a Spirit. This is the proper revelation of God’s triunity. It is as though He sends His Son and His Spirit to declare it to the world, “I, the LORD, am one and three.” If we understand it this way, then we see how the gospel is bound up in the Trinity.

What does this revelation reveal? That God is the Father who sends His Son and through His Son sends their Spirit.

This is the economic Trinity, the Trinity as it acts towards creation – from the Father, through the Son, in the Spirit.

These external acts then reflect a greater truth, that of the inner life of God, the immanent Trinity. The reason why God acts as the Father sending the Son and through the Son sending the Spirit is because God is the Father generating the Son and through the Son breathing the Spirit.

Add in the relationship between the Scriptures and the revelatory events, and what you have is an accurate representation of how the triune God acts towards creation. Not only that, but how the same triune God acts towards creation in a salvific way, thereby producing the Trinitarian Scriptures and a Trinitarian gospel.

It is hoped that these diagrams will aid in conceptualising the doctrine of the Trinity, that we might contemplate all of life in relation to our triune God, to which the next article turns.