Images of the Divine.

Every so often you come across a new image that hits you as a glimpse of the Divine Nature.  This one of the Trinity by the LGBT artist Douglas Blanchard did it for me.  OK, the wounded Father /wounded Son image veers towards Patripassianism ( see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patripassianism )  but I find this image both deeply powerful and engaging.  It earths the Trinity in an imagery I find accessible.  I also like this definition by the Orthodox theologian Thomas Hopko:  

"Thus, according to the Orthodox Tradition, it is the mystery of God that there are Three who are divine; Three who live and act by one and the same divine perfection, yet each according to their own personal distinctness and uniqueness. Thus it is said that the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are each divine with the same divinity, yet each in their own divine way. And as the uncreated divinity has three divine subjects, so each divine action has three divine actors; there are three divine aspects to every action of God, yet the action remains one and the same."

Holy God,
faithful and unchanging:
enlarge our minds with the knowledge of your truth,
and draw us more deeply into the mystery of your love,
that we may truly worship you,
Father, Son and Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever. Amen

(Common Worship, alternative collect for Trinity Sunday.)

A thought for Trinity.

I like this thought from Gregory of Nazianzus on the abstruse subject of the morrows feast:

"The Old Testament preached the Father clearly, but the Son only in an obscure manner. The New Testament revealed the Son, but did no more than hint at the Godhead of the Holy Spirit. Today the Spirit dwells amongus, manifesting himself to us more and more clearly. For it was not safe, when the divinity of the Father had not yet been ackniowledged, plainly to proclaim the Son; nor, when that of the Son had not yet been accepted, to burden us further - if I may use a somewhat bold expression - with the Holy Spirit.

So, by gradual additions and ascents, advancing from glory to glory, the splendour of the Holy Trinity shines upon the more enlightened. You see illuminations breaking upon us gradually; while the order of theology, which it is better for us to observe, prevents us both from proclaiming everything at once and from keeping it all hidden to the end."

OK, the exegesis in para one is lousy, the man never had an SPCK grant and missed out on the joys of Wainwright on the Trinity in the New Testament. But the gradual dawning of the light, the graciousness of God in the development of doctrine - well, easy to see why I prefet the Cappadocians to St Athanasius.