The Trinity made comprehensible.

 

Tomorrow is Trinity Sunday

I have two special reasons for being interested in the doctrine of the Trinity. One, because I live in a row of houses called Trinity Terrace, (so named because it says in my deeds that the builder bought the land from the ”Masters and Fellows of the College of the Holy and Undivided Trinity, Cambridge.)  The other arises from an incident when I was at junior school.

I was a fairly biddable school boy, not so much from innate goodness as fear – corporal punishment was rampant - but one occasion when I transcended the rules and suffered the indignity of being “kept in” (thankfully not the “double ruler”) sticks in my mind.

The church in which I was baptised and sang in the choir from about the age of seven had Choral Matins as its main Sunday morning service.  Every month in which there were five Sundays, we sang on the final, extra Sunday the Athanasian Creed instead of the usual Apostles’ Creed.  Whether there was some theological basis for this, or it was just a quirk of the vicar, I have no idea.

When I was in Standard 3, as it was then called, around the age of nine, the teacher said something, I don’t remember what, which trigged me to whisper to my desk-mate “the Father incomprehensible, the Son incomprehensible, and the Holy Ghost, incomprehensible and yet there are not three incomprehensible, but one incompressible.”

“Peter Wrigley, were you talking?”

“Er, well er . .”

“You will stay in at playtime and write down what you said.”.

So I did.  How I spelt it I wouldn’t like to say.  Nor have I any idea what Miss Parr made of the bit of paper I nervously handed to her, but I was allowed to go out and finish playtime.

So, with that background, allow me to explain what I believe is a rational basis of that which St Athanasius found incomprehensible.

God the Father.

It is not irrational to suppose that somehow the universe began.  I hesitate to write that some one or some thing began it, because that implies a person or a physical entity.  Better, I believe, to think of a cause. Better still, a force. 

There is nothing particularly modern about this idea.  The Church of England’s  Thirty-nine Articles, agreed in 1562, stipulate that “God” is not an old man with a long beard, resting on a bed on the Seventh Day, but “without body , parts or passions.”

Maybe the force has a purpose, or maybe not.  Maybe the force is benevolent, or maybe evil, or perhaps indifferent to what happens to the universe and the creatures in it.

Maybe the force intervenes in the universe and the lives of the creature in it.

Maybe not.

Maybe we shall never know.

But it is probably best for humankind to think positively and assume benevolence.

God the Son

The world’s different religions have different interpretations of the nature of the force. or forces, where, as with the Ancient Greeks and Romans, there were assumed to be numerous Gods, each with a different purpose. Our tradition is based on the opinions and teachings of what we call the Old Testament Prophets and what many believe to be the final revelation in the life teaching and example of Jesus Christ, along with  the writers of the New Testament Epistles.   Some regard additions by later sources  (eg the Early Fathers  Julian of Norwich, George Fox, various Papal pronouncements, Don Cupitt) as adding to our understanding.  Muslims go further and believe that Mohammed (peace be upon him) has the final say.

From these revelations we learn that the Force is benevolent, can be simply described as “love,” is endlessly forgiving and, “like a father,” wanting us to love even our enemies and care for each other and the creation.

God the Holy Ghost

Most Christians have already moved on from ghosts and now refer to the “Holy Spirit.” I suggest we can now take a further step and refer to the "Force."  The Force is still at work in the world (maybe even the Universe) and is available, if we so wish, to latch on to in order to help us lead the kind of lives we are intended to live: to strengthen our resolve and to protect us from any “perils and dangers” we might encounter.  This, again is not a fanciful idea.  We all find “safety in numbers” and assume that associating with others with similar aims by some mysterious means creates a bond, a force,  which strengthens and enables us in fulfilling our goals.  Regiments try to embolden their soldiers by appealing to its  “spirit,” traditions and ceremonies: football supporters  assume that cheering the teams creates  a force on spurs them on to victory.

Star Wars provides us with the modern version:  “The Force be with you.”

QED.

Or “Amen.”

It’s not incomprehensible, but perfectly logical and believable.

The Spending Review

 In a recent article on Liberal Democrat Voice (What Rachel is Doing Right, 9^th June) Sir Vince Cable, who was Business Secretary in the Coalition Government, describes  the present Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rachel Reeves, as  “competent, decent and economically literate.”  He itemises three reason for praising her.

1.    1. She has succeeded in persuading the Treasury to regard government expenditure for investment purposes as separate from current expenditure.  This it has been traditionally reluctant to do.  Gordon Brown circumvented the prohibition by the expensive PFI scheme, for which we are still paying dearly.  Serious proposals for public investment during the Coalition were blocked by Treasury resistance, but, on this, M/s Reeves has broken the mould – and “the markets” (as we can see today) have not cried “foul.”

2.    2. She has insisted on balancing current expenditure with current tax revenues.  This has been difficult for a Labour Chancellor since there are obvious Labour priorities  (eg the two child limit, among many others) which ought to be scrapped.  However, Cable recognises that,  after the Truss experience, confidence in the UK’s economic probity  is no longer sufficiently great to risk flouting conventions.  As pointed out above, “the markets” have recognised this.

3.   33.  She has recognised the unfairness of the present distribution of income and wealth in the British economy, with the elderly and established  more than comfortable while the young struggle to achieve the normal necessities of life (a home and a secure job).  She has tried to move the balance  in a more equitable direction by abolishing the universal Winter Fuel Allowance (WFA) for pensioners and the farmland  exemption from inheritance tax. Cable does not go into detail on these two measures so the following justifications are my own:

a)    The WFA for all pensioners was largely a waste of money.  There are about 10 million pensions and 8 million of us are very comfortably off.  When  the “bung” was introduced by Gordon Brown in the late 1990s the Liberal Democrats criticised it as “badly targeted”  Labour’s exemption from the abolition for those pensioners receiving pension credit covered only the bottom 1 million and the next million still needed help, so it was still badly targetted  However the new limit of “annual income less than  £35 000" is absurdly high. Labour got the sums wrong in the abolition and is now being over-profligate in compensation.

b)    The purpose of the exemption from inheritance tax on farmland was to avoid rich people buying land in order to ring-fence their wealth.  This should have been emphasised, and some method of exempting genuine farmers (eg an “active farmer” test as suggested  by Tim Farron) included.  Again, not thought through, and public relations.

Reactions to the spending review have been fairly predictable.  The Tories ignore the distinction between current  expenditure and investment and bleat about the increased borrowing costs (forgetting that most of the payments on government debt come to ourselves, some of it even to me in my modest holdings of National Savings Certificates, and to many in the form of their pension funds).  Conservative  Shadow Chancellor,  Mel Stride, thunders that taxes will rise in October to fund this profligacy.  Well, of course they will, and about time too, not to compensate for profligacy but to repair fourteen years of neglect.

The Liberal Democrats, more constructively, point out that much of the welcome increase in funding for the NHS will continue to be wasted on bed blockers who no longer need hospital treatment but for whom no places in the inadequate care system can be found.  We really cannot continue to ignore this gap in our social provision (and somehow the money has to be found, be the provision private or public.)

 The Labour Government has had a bad first year because it has been hemmed in by the promises of no tax rises it felt were necessary to win the election. In my view they have missed two golden opportunities to break the promise: the “discovery” of the £22bn black hole and, even more credibly, the withdrawal of the USA as the guarantor of the defence of Europe.  The latter in particular was an ideal opportunity  to declare the need for extra taxation, and the right wing would hardly have been in a position to make credible protest.  

 Having missed these two opportunities I hope labour will manage to confect some excuse to enable us to pay for the level of public services we deserve.  Be that as it may, I believe the review shows  they are now steering closer to the right track.