The Trinity for Dummies

Summenary Ep. 4 Jenson on the doctrine of the Trinity…[This] is the root and substance and heart of the so-called doctrine of the Trinity. God has a history with his people and the personages of this history are the Father of Jesus who is the author of the story, Jesus Christ, and the Spirit. It—the doctrine of the Trinity, I mean—is moreover the root and substance of the prayer that Jesus taught his disciples to pray. Jesus said to start off this way: “Our Father”; and then he gave them the prayer which was a traditional Jewish prayer except for something new at the beginning. We translate “Father,” but the Aramaic word that he would have used was Abba, which is the Aramaic equivalent of “Daddy”or “Papa.” That is to say, Jesus taught his disciples to address God as their daddy and then to bring their concerns to God as his children. Now, calling God “Father” in a general sort of way is a thing that pops up normally. But calling him “Our Father” as a way to begin prayer—now nobody did that; that was the new thing. How do Christians dare do that? I mean what in the world gives me the right every day to start off a prayer “Dear Daddy?” It is the “our” in there that counts. Jesus himself always addressed God this way. And Jesus invited his disciples to piggyback on his own relationship to God. So we pray to Jesus’s Father with him, with the Son, and in the Spirit who is the spiritual energy by which or whom we hope to do that. In this respect the whole doctrine of the Trinity can be explained by simply remarking that Christians pray to the Father, with the Son, in the Spirit, and are convinced that by so doing they are properly caught up in the story that God lives with his people.NOTE: If you want to read along in this series on Robert Jenson’s A Theology in Outline, you can find the PDF of next week’s reading below: This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit cameroncombs.substack.com