A Father's Love Letter

Our RCIA class resumed yesterday after a two week school holiday break.

Father George spoke on God the father. He said that the Old Testament gave an image of a God who was angry with His people when they disobeyed His commands, of a God who unleashed a flood to wipe off all the people who sinned. It was an image of a God whom the people feared.

The New Testament portrayed a different God. A God, in the person of Jesus, who loved His people, and was forgiving of their sins when they seeked salvation through Jesus.

The different images of God was a result of the experiences of the people during the times of the Old and New Testaments.

During the group discussions, we were asked a few questions about the images of God, and our views on the Holy Trinity, a Christian belief that God is one as well as three persons, of God, the son Jesus, and the Holy Spirit.

For the last question on Holy Trinity, nearly all the participants, including the priests, expressed that they can't understand the concept. It remains a mystery and they just have to accept it on faith alone.

I was slightly surprised by the group's response on the Holy Trinity. I mean there were a few other issues that were difficult to explain logically, and not just this Holy Trinity alone. However, the participants seemed more relaxed with the other inexplicable issues, including one we briefly touched on the people's free wills, but were more troubled by this Holy Trinity concept.

I am of the view that the Holy Trinity isn't a subject to worry about. We do not even need to try to explain it. God lives in another world, which is obviously a super set of our own. In that other world, the physical laws may operate differently from ours (And God is probably not subject to any physical laws anyway). What is impossible here may not necessarily be impossible in God's world. So why try to explain the concept of the Holy Trinity?

Take for example, the concept of time in our world. It is a significant physical law that operates and affects everything in our world. We are all locked in a time slot, the present. We can't be in the past or in the future, now. Scientists believe that traveling at or faster than the speed of light is the key to unlock time. As an object travels faster and faster approaching the speed of light, time slows until it stops totally at or beyond the speed of light. As I understand, God is everywhere. This does not appear to be disputed by anyone. So we can say that God travels faster than light. And so God is not locked down in time. He is present at this moment here, in the past and in the future.

To me, this is a far more significant concept about God, that He is everywhere in time, than the concept of the Holy Trinity.

I told the discussion group I believe and have no problem with the concept of the Holy Trinity. The group was quite surprised. Usually I am the odd one out, digging out a few issues that can't be explained away. In Buddhism too, there is a Buddha that is a Trinity, of the past, present and the future (过去现在未来佛). In Taoism, there is also the Taoist Trinity (三清). So Trinity exists in other religions too.

God is unknowable. Any limitations in explaining about God is simply due to the limitations of our own knowledge and physical laws. So why bother to rationalise everything?

Father George showed us a beautiful slide show, about a father's love letter. I enjoyed it very much, and thought I would share with you.