In He is There and He Is Not Silent, Schaeffer makes the remark:
Every once in a while in my discussions someone asks how I can believe in the Trinity. My answer is always the same. I would still be an agnostic if there was no Trinity, because there would be no answers. Without the high order of personal unity and diversity as given in the Trinity, there are no answers. (p. 288 Crossway compilation)
I have puzzled over this. Why would there be no answers?
I asked a friend who knew Schaeffer well, who answered:
You are not the first to scratch your head about this claim, and I myself find it quite strange and do not claim to be able to interpret it for you, or to believe it myself.
I have asked him to explain it and heard others do the same. I think the main thing in his mind was that he saw in the trinity that neither unity nor diversity, neither the One or the Many, was ultimate and so would obliterate the other. They were both anchored in the transcendent God. He saw secular philosophy as unable to resist getting pulled into one or the other of these dead ends -- of only unity (Parmenides) or only particularity (Heraclitus). I certainly see his point here because neither of these dead ends allows any serious understanding of the complexity and wonder of the human condition. But I can't help wondering if there was no trinity, whether I might be more likely to be a Jewish theist than an agnostic, but that question would be in practicality, so highly subjective as a counter-factual puzzle.It all seems a tricky question to say what part of Xn truth, if removed, would make me abandon my faith, maybe not always helpful -- although Paul said it about the resurrection of Jesus. I heard Schaeffer also say that he could not be a Christian if God had not himself shut the door finally on the ark at the start of the flood. He felt that to ask Noah to do it would have been too cruel and inappropriate, given what would happen to everyone else who was not in the ark. On the other hand I asked him once if he were to ever have macro-evolution demonstrated to have been true beyond any doubt, would he leave his faith as a result? He said, "No, but I would have to rethink a great deal."To get back to the trinity, but leave Schaeffer's discussion, I found Tim Keller's insight intriguing when he said that only if God is trinity can love be part of his character, i.e. who he is intrinsically. If God was only One, there would have been no one for him to love unless it was someone whom God had created. If God was only One, his main attribute of character would have been power -- who might have chosen to do loving things, but they would be arbitrary and not grounded in his being and he might have easily done the opposite.
- He is demonstrably personal
- He communicates: the three persons of the trinity are in constant communication for the other: communication and relationship are basic. It is also real, significant and true.
- There is inherent diversity and unity, inescapably, as per my friend's observation.
- God's acts flow directly from who he is, with no other reference.