Musings on the Trinity

Ontologically, God is and in essence the single and only primal consciousness of imaginative and willful potentialities. In His imaginative and realized potentialities by inference He communicates Himself as self-sustaining love. Since only Godly intentionality is capable of sustaining and communicating such primal love it is rightfully assumed that His expressed purposes are of such nature. Now, let us consider these assertions. 

Firstly, as the primal essence God is what He is and He is understood only when declared as such. Fortunately, as an act of sustaining love God graciously discloses Himself to us through His Word which He announces and was proclaimed in the kerygma and from which we derive doctrine.

Accordingly, the kerygma is distinct from didache, which refers to teaching, instruction, or doctrine. Thus the kerygma refers to the initial introduction to the claims of the Gospel with an implied or otherwise stated appeal for conversion, whereas; on the other hand, the didache (catechesis) concerns the fuller and more extensive doctrinal and moral teaching and instruction in the Faith that a person receives once he has accepted the kerygma and has been baptized* and which more fully assist our understanding of the content of this persuasive grace. God as such--that is in His divine essence--has lovingly and thereby graciously initiated both the disclosure and the creaturely capacity for understanding the act and nature of this message. 

This we believe necessarily, that then:

". . . faith [comes] by hearing, and hearing by the word of God." [Romans 10:17]

In other words, conceptually faith is activated in content as a word from God--the word, however, is not faith but only the self-disclosing content on which faith acts.

Thus by faith and a priori intuition we understand that God is and He rewards those who earnestly seek Him. [Hebrews 11:6 NIV] Ethereal concepts are however just that: concepts, unless actualized in the praxis of life. Two plus two may in ethereal reality equal four; however, the concept is understood first in concrete reality--thus, Godwardly we understand the necessity of the incarnation for a fuller understanding of who He is.

Thus the axiom that if one wishes to understand a jelly fish then one must have access to a jelly fish is true in this case even more so because for God to remain ethereally aloof in His aseity may not discount His existence but it would most certainly influence our understanding of Him and at best He could only be understood apophatically. This, Tillich understood but failed to articulate how he came to this conclusion other than through ignorance. Apophatic ignorance is hallow without reference or substance so therefore is incapable of understanding.

It is said that Buddha was once asked what God is and he pointed to a variety of things and said, "God is not this; God is not that!" Naturally, he could have gone on infinitely since the primal essence of God is beyond our grasp unless we are granted through and by His self-disclosure to glimpse His inwardness through the analogy of His outwardness in the praxis of our understanding. 

This God has done, we believe, in and through the incarnation of His primal essence in the humanity of Jesus of Nazareth, His Son and the son of Mary, a virgin girl married to Joseph the carpenter as recorded in Holy Writ the Christian canon of scriptures.   

That having been said, however, gives humanity at best only a glimpse of His Godly glory which may spark a certain curiosity but can only be adequately understood when appropriated in faith.

Faith without action is dead, so we thereby understand that a casual or intellectual curiosity is not sufficient. Commitment is required and by His grace we come to sense cognitively that we are indeed His child as our spirit bears witness with His Spirit that we are His offspring. [Acts 17:28] 

And, again we read in Romans 8:15-19 that,

The Spirit you received does not make you slaves, so that you live in fear again; rather, the Spirit you received brought about your adoption to son-ship. And by him we cry, “Abba, Father.” 16 The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children. 17 Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory. 18 I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. 19 For the creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed. [NIV]

Further, the Scriptures informs us that,

6 Because you are his sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, “Abba, Father.” [Galatians 4:6 NIV]

This certain dawning, as it were, is the eureka moment--that, aha! moment at which our human experience suddenly realizes that God is there and we then realize that 

‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’ [Acts 17:28 NIV]

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* http://www.catholic.com/blog/hector-molina/the-kerygma-enigma