A group of high school students meets in my house every Tuesday night. It is not the same group of students from week to week, but, I believe it is the group of students that God wants to be there on any given week.
Two weeks ago a student showed up that hadn’t been there in a while and she sparked a wonderful conversation. This past Sunday her mother came up to me and reported how much that conversation energized her and led her to have deep conversations with her boyfriend about God and quantum physics. Yep, they are those kinds of students. Isn’t that wonderful?
The Trinity has come up a lot lately. We spent time talking about it in our adult small group last night as we reflected on the chapter “The Renewable Energy of Relationships” in Kai Nilsen’s book Renew Your Life. We talked about how Genesis 1:26-31 tells us that it is the relationship between male and female and between humanity and nature that is the image of God (who refers to God’s self in the plural, btw).
The Social/Relational/Entangled Trinity is a the heart of my dissertation.
Richard Rohr is writing about it in his daily meditations. This morning’s meditation was especially good. He said,
Trinitarian theology says that true power is circular or spiral, not so much hierarchical. It’s here; it’s within us. It’s shared and shareable; it’s already entirely for us. We have the power of “the Holy Spirit that has been given to us” (Romans 5:5). God’s Spirit is planted within you and operating as you! Don’t keep looking to the top of the pyramid. Stop idolizing the so-called “Top 1 %.” There’s nothing worthwhile up there that is not also down here. Worst of all, it has given much of the world an unnecessary and tragic inferiority complex. Trinity says that God’s power is not domination, threat, or coercion, but of a totally different nature, one that even Jesus’ followers have not yet adjusted to. If the Father does not dominate the Son, and the Son does not dominate the Holy Spirit, and the Spirit does not dominate the Father or the Son, then there’s no domination in God. All divine power is shared power. This should have entirely changed Christian religion, politics, and relationships.
My wife and I saw The Shack this week, and the social Trinity oozes through that movie.
So, in honor of my high school friends, I refer to these two books that discuss the Trinity in terms of Quantum Physics. Enjoy!
The Entangled Trinity: Quantum Physics and Theology by Ernest Simmons
read my review here.
The Trinity and an Entangled World: Relationality in Physical Science and Theology edited by John Polkinghorne
read my review here.