Nothing Less Than God

Trinity Sunday. Fr Robert Verrill considers the limits of human reason.

In the conclusion of his book ‘A Brief History of Time’, Stephen Hawking wrote that if we were to discover a theory of everything that could explain why the universe exists, ‘it would be the ultimate triumph of human reason – for then we would know the mind of God.’

Now even though Stephen Hawking never publicly professed to believe in God and was on many occasions critical of those who did, there is nevertheless something deeply theological about his desire to discover one single simple theory which could account for all the rich diversity that we see in the world around us. This desire should resonate with anyone who is fascinated by Catholic theology. In Catholic theology, it is not one single theory which accounts for the whole of reality, but one fundamental and simple principle, and Catholic theologians refer to this fundamental principle as God.

So there are some similarities between the aspirations of theologians and the aspirations of physicists like Stephen Hawking. However, Stephen Hawking was mistaken in his conviction that human beings had the potential to grasp this fundamental principle via the use of their reason alone. All that can be grasped by human reason are things that belong to the created order. But the fundamental principle at the heart of reality that accounts for all that exists is uncreated. This fundamental principle which we call God is perfectly simple and undivided, and although we can reasonably conclude that there must be such a principle, reason itself does not allow us to comprehend this principle.

But at the heart of our Christian faith is the belief that this principle which we call God and from which all things come, has been revealed to us to be a Trinity of persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Even though it is impossible for us to grasp by our natural reason how there can only be one God and yet three distinct persons each of which can be identified as being God, if we accept this belief in faith, we can begin to see how the things of creation reflect the unity in plurality that exists in our Trinitarian God.

For example, in the realm of physics, physicists will often speak about the beauty of physical theories, and when they do so, they are speaking of the intellectual delight they experience when they perceive some simple principle that unites many diverse physical phenomena.

For centuries, philosophers have noted that with any form of beauty, there is always some kind of unity in plurality. The desire to discern and experience unity in plurality, and hence beauty, has been a great driving force in human creativity, and from a Trinitarian perspective, this driving force reflects humanity’s search for God, the ultimate principle of reality that is both three and one.

There is nevertheless a danger in this search. For in humanity’s search for this unity in plurality, there is the temptation to settle for something less than God, and the result can be disastrous. For when we settle for one single principle that is not God, then any of the distinctions that this single principle fails to account for will be dismissed as non-existing. Materialists fall into this temptation when they say that there is no real distinction between human beings and the rest of physical reality. But because materialism fails to recognize the true dignity of human existence as a unity of body and soul, materialists can often end up living rather undignified lives.

So if we are to be redeemed, we must not settle for anything less than the Trinitarian God in our search for unity in plurality. In being redeemed, the inner life of the Trinity shapes us so that there is a rich integrity to ourselves in which all the diverse episodes and relationships of our lives form a coherent and meaningful whole.

So we do have an answer to the ultimate question of why the universe exists – it exists in order that we might participate in the life of the Trinity. But our discovery of this answer is not a triumph of human reason, but rather it is a triumph of Jesus Christ who in His work of redemption has revealed to us the mind of God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

Readings: Proverbs 8:22-31 | Romans 5:1-5 | John 16:12-15