(a) From inanimate things—as the fountain, the stream, and the rivulet trickling from it (Athanasius); the cloud, the rain, and the rising mist (Boardman); color, shape, and size (F. W. Robertson); the actinic, luminiferous, and calorific principles in the ray of light (Solar Hieroglyphics, 34).
Luther: “When logic objects to this doctrine that it does not square with her rules, we must say; ‘Mulier taceat in ecclesia.’ ” Luther called the Trinity a flower, in which might be distinguished its form, its fragrance, and its medicinal efficacy; see Dorner, Gesch. prot. Theol., 189. In Bap. Rev., July, 1880:434, Geer finds an illustration of the Trinity in infinite space with its three dimensions. For analogy of the cloud, rain, mist, see W. E. Boardman, Higher Christian Life. Solar Hieroglyphics, 34 (reviewed in New Englander, Oct. 1874:789)—“The Godhead is a tripersonal unity, and the light is a trinity. Being immaterial and homogeneous, and thus essentially one in its nature, the light includes a plurality of constituents, or in other words is essentially three in its constitution, its constituent principles being the actinic, the luminiferous, and the calorific; and in glorious manifestation the light is one, and is the created, constituted, and ordained emblem of the tripersonal God”—of whom it is said that “God is light, and in him is no darkness at all” (1 John 1:5). The actinic rays are in themselves invisible; only as the luminiferous manifest them, are they seen; only as the calorific accompany them, are they felt.
Joseph Cook: “Sunlight, rainbow, heat—one solar radiance; Father, Son, Holy Spirit, one God. As the rainbow shows what light is when unfolded, so Christ reveals the nature of God. As the rainbow is unraveled light, so Christ is unraveled God, and the Holy Spirit, figured by heat, is Christ's continued life.” Ruder illustrations are those of Oom Paul Krüger: the fat, the wick, the flame, in the candle; and of Augustine: the root, trunk, branches, all of one wood, in the tree. In Geer's illustration, mentioned above, from the three dimensions of space, we cannot demonstrate that there is not a fourth, but besides length, breadth, and thickness, we cannot conceive of its existence. As these three exhaust, so far as we know, all possible modes of material being, so we cannot conceive of any fourth person in the Godhead.
(b) From the constitution or processes of our own minds—as the psychological unity of intellect, affection, and will (substantially held by Augustine); the logical unity of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis (Hegel); the metaphysical unity of subject, object, and subject-object (Melanchthon, Olshausen, Shedd).
Augustine: “Mens meminit sui, intelligit se, diligit se; si hoc cernimus, Trinitatem cernimus.”... I exist, I am conscious, I will; I exist as conscious and willing, I am conscious of existing and willing, I will to exist and be conscious; and these three functions, though distinct, are inseparable and form one life, one mind, one essence.... “Amor autem alicujus amantis est, et amore aliquid amatur. Ecce tria sunt, amans, et quod amatur, et amor. Quid est ergo amor, nisi quædam vita duo aliqua copulans, vel copulare appetans, amantem scilicet et quod amatur.” Calvin speaks of Augustine's view as “a speculation far from solid.” But Augustine himself had said: “If asked to define the Trinity, we can only say that it is not this or that.” John of Damascus: “All we know of the divine nature is that it is not to be known.” By this, however, both Augustine and John of Damascus meant only that the precise mode of God's triune existence is unrevealed and inscrutable.
Hegel, Philos. Relig., transl., 3:99, 100—“God is, but is at the same time the Other, the self-differentiating, the Other in the sense that this Other is God himself and has potentially the Divine nature in it, and that the abolishing of this difference, of this [pg 345]otherness, this return, this love, is Spirit.” Hegel calls God “the absolute Idea, the unity of Life and Cognition, the Universal that thinks itself and thinkingly recognizes itself in an infinite Actuality, from which, as its Immediacy, it no less distinguishes itself again”; see Schwegler, History of Philosophy, 321, 331. Hegel's general doctrine is that the highest unity is to be reached only through the fullest development and reconciliation of the deepest and widest antagonism. Pure being is pure nothing; we must die to live. Light is thesis, Darkness is antithesis, Shadow is synthesis, or union of both. Faith is thesis, Unbelief is antithesis, Doubt is synthesis, or union of both. Zweifel comes from Zwei, as doubt from δύο. Hegel called Napoleon “ein Weltgeist zu Pferde”—“a world-spirit on horseback.” Ladd, Introd. to Philosophy, 202, speaks of “the monotonous tit-tat-too of the Hegelian logic.” Ruskin speaks of it as “pure, definite, and highly finished nonsense.” On the Hegelian principle good and evil cannot be contradictory to each other; without evil there could be no good. Stirling well entitled his exposition of the Hegelian Philosophy “The Secret of Hegel,” and his readers have often remarked that, if Stirling discovered the secret, he never made it known.
Lord Coleridge told Robert Browning that he could not understand all his poetry. “Ah, well,” replied the poet, “if a reader of your calibre understands ten per cent. of what I write, he ought to be content.” When Wordsworth was told that Mr. Browning had married Miss Barrett, he said: “It is a good thing that these two understand each other, for no one else understands them.” A pupil once brought to Hegel a passage in the latter's writings and asked for an interpretation. The philosopher examined it and replied: “When that passage was written, there were two who knew its meaning—God and myself. Now, alas! there is but one, and that is God.” Heinrich Heine, speaking of the effect of Hegelianism upon the religious life of Berlin, says: “I could accommodate myself to the very enlightened Christianity, filtrated from all superstition, which could then be had in the churches, and which was free from the divinity of Christ, like turtle soup without turtle.” When German systems of philosophy die, their ghosts take up their abode in Oxford. But if I see a ghost sitting in a chair and then sit down boldly in the chair, the ghost will take offence and go away. Hegel's doctrine of God as the only begotten Son is translated in the Journ. Spec. Philos., 15:395-404.
The most satisfactory exposition of the analogy of subject, object, and subject-object is to be found in Shedd, History of Doctrine, 1:365, note 2. See also Olshausen on John 1:1; H. N. Day, Doctrine of Trinity in Light of Recent Psychology, in Princeton Rev., Sept. 1882:156-179; Morris, Philosophy and Christianity, 122-163. Moberly, Atonement and Personality, 174, has a similar analogy: 1. A man's invisible self; 2. the visible expression of himself in a picture or poem; 3. the response of this picture or poem to himself. The analogy of the family is held to be even better, because no man's personality is complete in itself; husband, wife, and child are all needed to make perfect unity. Allen, Jonathan Edwards, 372, says that in the early church the Trinity was a doctrine of reason; in the Middle Ages it was a mystery; in the 18th century it was a meaningless or irrational dogma; again in the 19th century it becomes a doctrine of the reason, a truth essential to the nature of God. To Allen's characterization of the stages in the history of the doctrine we would add that even in our day we cannot say that a complete exposition of the Trinity is possible. Trinity is a unique fact, different aspects of which may be illustrated, while, as a whole, it has no analogies. The most we can say is that human nature, in its processes and powers, points towards something higher than itself, and that Trinity in God is needed in order to constitute that perfection of being which man seeks as an object of love, worship and service.
No one of these furnishes any proper analogue of the Trinity, since in no one of them is there found the essential element of tripersonality. Such illustrations may sometimes be used to disarm objection, but they furnish no positive explanation of the mystery of the Trinity, and, unless carefully guarded, may lead to grievous error.