A Methodist's approach to understanding God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit, and the Trinity

1 A Methodist’s Approach to the Four Doctrines of God, Jesus, Holy Spirit and Trinity A Methodist would use tradition, experience, reason and revelation in approaching an understanding of the four doctrines of God, Jesus, Holy Spirit and the Trinity. Much of this tradition is handed down through practice—the practice of prayer (such as reciting the Apostle’s Creed, in which the tenets of the faith are asserted: “I believe in God, the Father Almighty, Creator of Heaven and of Earth, and in Jesus Christ, His only Son, Our Lord…”). Through prayers that are taught to them, a Methodist develops an understanding of the Trinity (especially through the Creed) and of the Triune God. While God can be One Divine Being with Three Divine Persons is a mystery, it is one that a Methodist accepts as part of the Christian doctrine, as taught through revelation—particularly through the New Testament, which reveals the characters of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. There is Jesus, the Son, Who always refers to the will of His Father. There is Holy Spirit, Who comes down to the Apostles after Jesus ascends into Heaven, described as Pentecost in the tradition of the Church.[footnoteRef:2] (Iovino, 2015). So all three are present, yet it is also understood that there is an equality that all three share, even though they are distinct persons. [2: Joe Iovino, “Come, Holy Ghost,” The People of the United Methodist Church, 2015. http://www.umc.org/what-we-believe/come-holy-ghost-a-wesleyan-perspective-on-the-spirit]

The uniqueness of the Holy Trinity among the world religions is that this phrase defines the true God. It reveals God the Father of the Old Testament, Who announced Himself as “I AM Who Am.”[footnoteRef:3] It also reveals the Son of God, Who was expected and anticipated by all the Old Testament prophets and foreshadowed in the various characters of the Old Testament, from David to Moses to Isaac and so on. Jesus, the Son of God, represents the New Adam, just as His mother represents the New Eve. The Holy Spirit is the life that guides the Church, founded by Christ, with Peter at its head. Only when the Holy Spirit fills the Apostles does the Church begin to spring into action. This life of the Holy Spirit is what compels the disciples to leave their hiding place and begin their missionary work, which takes them all over the world, preaching the Word of God because it is the truth that Christ taught to them—the truth about the way to be holy, the way to praise God, the way to live, the way to fight temptation, the way to be a true child of God, the way to reach heaven.[footnoteRef:4] The Bible serves as the source of revelation that a Methodist would use to shape one’s understanding of God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit and the Trinity and in Bible, one reads about how the Holy Spirit fills the hearts of the Apostles and empowers them to go out and do their mission. [3: Ex 3:14] [4: Donald Senior & Carroll Stuhlmueller, The Biblical Foundations for Mission (London: SCM, 1983), 3.]

A Methodist can also directly experience this, too—not just read about it in the Bible or learn about it through prayer or catechism. One can directly experience the power of God, the truth of what Jesus said and did and taught, and how the Holy Spirit guides and leads. This experience can be personal and direct or it can be witnessed and seen indirectly. Many times, people hear stories about conversions or about how people came to the light of God and became new people. Stories like that of Malcolm X, who went from being a thug in jail to being a devout Muslim and a social activist are stories that show how a person can come to God in a unique way that truly shows that God exists, that God’s grace is real and that though some people may approach God differently than others, there is an underlying sense that behind all the names (whether it is Allah or God or the Holy Trinity), men of good will are seeking the Higher Power, the Higher Truth, and striving to change their lives so that they are in conformity with the power and that truth. Experience is a very important way for one to approach the doctrines of God because it assists in the deep down understanding that is crucial to the formation and development of the soul. The experience helps to give the teachings and the logic of the doctrine a personal, lived, felt and vital reality. Rather than simply accepting the teachings on paper or as they are applied in prayer, experience shows one that there is this reality—that life is real and that the struggle to do good and to avoid evil is real. Experience shows that one must struggle to overcame one’s own nature at times. Experience shows that one must wrestle with problems and questions and pray for guidance and assistance because God wants everyone to rely on Him since He is the author of life and the source of all that is good. God wants everyone to humbly come to Him and submit one’s life at His feet, the way that Jesus did. This humble submission may seem like one is losing one’s life, but as Christ teaches, he who loses his life shall find it.[footnoteRef:5] Experience teaches one that this is so and while tradition and the Bible also teach it, experience is what helps to confirm it—just like the Apostles are confirmed in the Holy Spirit on Pentecost. [5: Mt 10:39]

Reason also assists one in approaching these doctrines. There is nothing contrary to reason in the faith. The faith is consistent, whole, and sound, and just because the mystery of the Trinity may be beyond the grasp of one’s reason does not mean that it is not so. One’s reason will, in fact, lead one to Christ if one is paying attention and hears the messages of Christ that are being taught. People who approach God through other paths may not hear of Christ, but they may still be hearing the voice of God through the various masks and crooked lines that God loves to write straight with. Christ, however, is the true voice of God and just as those who heard His voice were converted and followed Him, because they knew in their reason that He was truly the Son of God, so too can reason be applied in one’s study of the various religions to see how Christ is different from all others in that His coming was pre-announced: it was looked forward to by many for generations and generations. The particulars of His life were described in detail by the prophets who foretold of how He would be born, how He would live, what He would do, and how He would die and establish a Kingdom for His followers.[footnoteRef:6] The truth of His life is experienced still in the world, through the working of miracles and through the intervention of the Holy Spirit in guiding those who call upon Him to show the way and lead one in all humility to the light. Reason tells one that these things are so and are true and consistent with the reality that one experiences. [6: Fulton Sheen, Life of Christ (NY: Image Books, 2008), 48.]

Reason is truly what faith rests upon.[footnoteRef:7] However, at the same time, Paul reminds one that the power of the Holy Spirit is beyond the reason and wisdom of men. Reason and logic can show that God is greater than man and that God’s grace is superior to anything that man can make for himself. Reason tells man that God in the person of Jesus Christ has redeemed mankind, but still Paul states that “my message and my preaching were not with persuasive words of wisdom, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, so that your faith would not rest on men’s wisdom, but on God’s power.  Among the mature, however, we speak a message of wisdom—but not the wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing.…”[footnoteRef:8] Faith and reason go together but it is not a self-serving reason but rather an honest reason—a reason that is interested in objective truth, without pretension, and a reason that is willing to accept mystery and its own limitations. As Rosenthal notes, “Thomas Aquinas has long been understood to have reconciled faith and reason. Typically, he is understood as having provided justification for faith by means of proof, particularly, that the Five Ways prove the existence of God. Under this interpretation, faith becomes a species of justified belief, and the justification for faith rests upon the success of the Five Ways (or, alternatively, on the success of other justificatory evidence).”[footnoteRef:9] The Five Ways of Aquinas, of course, are: [7: James Swindal, “Faith and Reason,” Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2018. http://www.iep.utm.edu/faith-re/] [8: 1 Cor 2:5] [9: Creighton Rosental, “The reconciliation of faith and reason in Thomas Aquinas,” 2004 Doctoral Dissertations Available from Proquest. AAI3136773. https://scholarworks.umass.edu/dissertations/AAI3136773]