On the First Sunday after Pentecost the western Christian Church celebrates not an event nor a person but a doctrine, a mystery, namely, that the one, true God has revealed Himself in sacred scripture as a trinity of persons identified with the names Father, Son and Holy Spirit. I suppose there is very much about God that we human beings could never comprehend or understand much less explain, even if He were to tell us. But this mystery—that there is only one true God, one God, who, yet, can be known and must be known and worshiped as a trinity of persons—while beyond human ability to do anything but describe and believe if not understand, must be acknowledged and held by anyone who would be saved. This is, after all, the language of the ecumenical creed called the Athanasian: (more…)