Trinity, by Jason Byassee

Chapter 3

The Triune God We Don’t Know

1. Why is it important to say God is simple – that whatever is God is altogether God? 

2. What can Darwinism teach trinitarians? 

    - Where do the two stories fundamentally fail to reconcile? 

3. Why is it that the Trinity can best be glimpsed not by the genius but by the saint? 

4. What do you think of these glimpses of the Trinity in creation? 

    

    - Are they believable? 

    

    - Why are they important? 

5. Who is someone holy in whom you have glimpsed the holy and blessed Trinity?

Trinity, by Jason Byassee

Chapter 2

The Spirit We Don’t Know

1. I had this exchange with a former Pentecostal who was coming to join our church. She said, “I’m sick of the Holy Spirit.” I responded, “Oh good, we’re mainline Methodists, we rarely speak of the Spirit at all!” 

- Which has been more like your experience? 

- Which experience do you envy? 

2. “When you see love, you see a Trinity,” Augustine said. 

- How does that match your experience? 

- Is it a sufficient role for the Spirit to be the love between the Father and the Son? 

3. Should we name the Spirit “she”? 

- Why or why not? 

4. What strengths or dangers are there in describing the Spirit as the “shy” person of the Trinity? 

5. What is the filioque and why does it matter (if it does at all)? 

6. How can we tell if an impressive “sign” is the work of the Holy Spirit or of some other spirit? 

- Does the miraculous help us clarify which is which or not?

7. Does the Spirit work beyond the bounds of the church or of those who know Jesus? 

- If so, how?

Trinity, by Jason Byassee

Chapter 1

The Son We Don’t Know

1. How does Jesus drive our wondering about the Trinity? 

2. Scriptural thought about Jesus gravitates between two adages: 

    (1) what is not divine cannot save, and 

    (2) what Jesus has not assumed, he has not healed. 

    Where do these come from biblically? 

    How could they guide our thought and speech about God? 

3. How does our worship tell us the truth about God? 

    Or is it merely a consumer preference? 

    Why would ancient Christians think otherwise? 

4. How might heresy be helpful to determining what Christians  

    believe? 

    How does the long arc of church history show God’s patience with 

    us? 

5. When, if ever, is a little extremism a good thing? 

6. Why must all language, however “correct,” be scrubbed free of 

    misunderstanding? 

7. St. Hilary said that although God is one, God “is not solitary.” 

    How does that change our view of God? 

8. Why is it important that God is not male (or female)? 

    How could our language for God reflect God’s superiority to human   

    categories like gender?