What should we do with a doctrine like the Trinity?

Confessionally, the doctrine of the Trinity is widely held by a number of different Christian traditions—Protestant, Roman Catholic, Orthodox, and Anglican—who would be happy to disagree on any number of other points of doctrine.

One of the interesting things that happens to us with this doctrine is that we often ignore it because we find it so difficult to explain. We’ve tried using the analogy of H2O as a liquid, solid, and gas. We’ve tried using the three parts to an egg (the white, the yolk, and the shell). We’ve even tried talking about one person existing as a father, a son, and a grandson. But, in the end, all these analogies fail. This, however, is how it ought to be, because the one we’re trying to explain is God, after all.

How can we possibly talk about the one being of God existing as three persons when there’s nothing else in the world, we can point to like that?

What might help is to look at a story.

At the end of Matthew 3, we see a curious thing happening with Jesus’s baptism. In this brief story, we see (1) Jesus coming up out of the water, (2) the Holy Spirit descending like a dove, and (3) the Father speaking about the Son.

The story is trinitarian.

There is no theological formulation by Matthew (not that those are unhelpful); the story is just told as it happened.

Often the language used to describe the baptism is more difficult than it needs to be. And, so, sometimes—not always—but sometimes, a story about a baptism is easier.