Changing the Game

So my proposal is to change the game, so to speak, when it comes to Trinitarian theology.
The path that I am proposing is

 acceptance-experience-understanding

a path that sounds like Anselm's "faith seeking understanding," but different in application.

I am also proposing setting aside the typical path in Trinitarian theology of

understanding-acceptance

This path has difficulties because it relies first on the finite human mind attempting to understand the infinite. If understanding does not occur, the doctrine is often rejected, accepted in some vague form, or accepted dogmatically. As a result, the doctrine has little to no relevance in the Christian experience, at least not that one consciously acknowledges. It is merely theological trivia revered as divine mystery of the incomprehensible God.

The first path does not reject the work of those who have developed Trinitarian theology. Rather, it is quite grateful for the work done in the past and that continues to be done. This path accepts the conclusions that these giants articulated - God is Trinity - One God in Three Persons. Not one God with three masks or modes or three Gods equal or unequal, but One God in Three Persons. And this path accepts this second belief - that only a God who is Trinity could have done the work of creation and salvation in the way that the Bible reveals that it was done. In personal terms, only a Trinitarian God could have saved us in the way and with the results that He did.

The way that I have summarized this previously is: "Without the cross, we cannot know the Trinity. Without the Trinity, there is no cross. The cross is the full revelation of God. The Trinity is who God is. The cross is our starting point. The Trinity is our destination."

By accepting the conclusions, we can avoid (at least at the outset) from getting lost in the Trinitarian forest. We accept the revelation and live it. As we live out the results of having been redeemed by a Trinitarian God for Trinitarian fellowship, we come to understand what we could not have fully known or appreciated prior to this experience. This also helps us free the doctrine of the Trinity from the ivory towers of academia and take the doctrine to the pews where we ask the question: How then shall we live?