By Schubert Ogden
The Notebooks of Schubert Ogden
On the Trinity
Consider what is involved in the situation of our coming to know, so as to trust and to love, another person.
There is, first, the other person her- or himself in the sheer givenness of her or his existence and actuality as mysterious other. There is, second, the meaning of the other person for us, so far as she or he is disclosed to us through significant word, deed, or gesture. Then, third, there is the worth or power of the other person as that about her or him which actually makes possible our coming to know, so as to trust and to love her or him. Otherwise put, there is the other person her- or himself as the unity discerned in and presupposed by the other person for us as both the object and the ground of our trust and love.
Why isn't this an adequate analogy for the trinity? God the Father is God as the mysterious other with whom we have to do "in, with, and under" whatever else we have to do with. God the Son is God as the intelligible meaning of the mysterious other for us, and hence the object (more exactly, the ultimate object) of our trust in and love for that mysterious other. Finally, God the Holy Spirit is God as the worth or power of the mysterious other, which is itself the ground (more exactly, the ultimate ground) of the same trust and love. We trust in and love God because of God, because God both discloses Godself to us and calls forth our trust and love.
22 August 1973; rev. 15 December 1993
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