What's in a Name?

A few days ago we celebrated the Memorial of the Holy Name of Jesus. Doesn't it strike you as a little odd that we have a feast devoted to a name? What's a name but a string of syllables attached to a thing or person? What makes a name special or holy? What's in a name?

A name is a personal marker. It's personal in that it is specific and individualized, and a marker in that it is a sign that identifies. A name points out a particular thing: my name is Nick, your name is Bob, his name is Jack, her name is Sally. It's an intimate part of who we are.

Names not only mark out individuals, but they allow for social relationships; indeed, there's not much need to mark out individuals unless they're among other individuals! Sharing your name is one of the first steps in social contact. When you introduce yourself, you create a bond with someone, that little bit of social glue--"Oh hey, it's what's-his-name." Think of how shocking it is when a stranger knows your name, or when you forget the name of someone you know you're meant to know! To know someone's name is to have a certain level of intimacy with them.

God's name was a mystery until Moses asked it of Him at the burning bush. With Moses, God established a covenant, a deep and binding relationship, with Israel: you will be my people, and I will be your God. And one could see the revelation of God's name to Moses as a real first step in the covenant, almost an introduction, if you will. Who is this God that calls Israel and binds Himself to them? It is YHWH: "I am who am" or "I am that I am" (Exodus 3:14).

(The meaning of this name is interesting to consider. Some take it to be a gentle rebuke to Moses, like "My name is my name--don't ask impertinent questions." St. Thomas Aquinas took it to be a profound philosophical statement: God identifies Himself as the one who's essence it is to exist, the one for whom existence is necessary: "I am the one who IS." Or, as Peter Kreeft quipped, beginning my quoting Shakespeare: "'What's in a name?' Moses asked God that at the burning bush, and God answered, 'I am.'")

Then God revealed Himself fully in the person of Jesus, "the name above all other names" (Philippians 2:9), "no other name under heaven by which men are saved" (Acts 4:12). Jesus, God in the flesh, makes a new covenant between God and man, sealed in his own blood, and marked by his name. Thus "whatever you ask in my name, I will do, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son" (John 14:13). Now God has a personal name, a name which marks Him out and identifies who He is, for Yeshua means, "God saves."

When we pray "In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit," when we make petitions "in Jesus' name," we invoke that covenant relationship which we entered in Baptism. We say to God: "It's me, God. It's your friend. I know your name! You are "the one who saves"! I know who you are, and you know me. Please, for the sake of our relationship, grant X." The name of Jesus is powerful. Put it to good use.

Preserved from All Stain: How's that?

Though December 8 is usually the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception, this year, because the date falls on a Sunday of Advent, the feast is transferred to today, December 9. I'm sure you heard this at Mass yesterday, but it serves as a handy opening to this post, so indulge me, will ya? I just wanted to mention one aspect of this wonderful dogma you may not have thought of before.

First, though, the annual reminder: the "immaculate conception" refers to MARY being conceived without original sin. It does not refer to Jesus' virginal conception. I understand that some of our Protestant brethren regularly use "immaculate conception" to refer to the miraculous circumstances of Jesus' coming into the world--I guess they just liked the term and wanted to keep using it since they disbelieved in its original content.

Here's the problem with that, though: macula means "stain," or "dishonor," so an "immaculate conception" would mean "a conception without stain or dishonor." This makes perfect sense if we're referring to the stain of original sin. But if we're referring to the Virgin Birth of Jesus? What stain or dishonor has been avoided by that "immaculate conception"? It implies that the sexual act, which normally is that which produces a child but which was miraculously dispensed with in this case, is the "stained" or "dishonorable" thing. This puts the conjugal act in quite a negative light, doesn't it? Now that marvelous act in which a man and woman come together to cooperate with God in creating a new life suddenly is portrayed as a dirty and wicked performance of a duty necessary for propagating the species, but nothing more. This is hardly a fitting way to describe one of God's great gifts to humanity.

OK, so perhaps there were two aspects of this dogma I wanted to consider today. Here's the other. The Blessed Virgin Mary, by a singular grace of God, was kept free from the stain and the effects of original sin from the first moment of her existence. The Church believes, further, that she was preserved from all personal sin during her life. But hold on: if Mary never had any sin, and Jesus saves us from our sins, does that mean that Jesus is not Mary's savior? Does that mean Mary didn't need a savior? Does that mean "Christ died for all humanity... except Mary"?

No! Mary was indeed saved by the sacrifice of Christ on the cross, but in a unique way. An analogy would help here. Let's say there's a large pit in your path. There are at least two ways someone could be saved from the pit: 1) after someone's fallen into the pit, they are pulled out of it; or 2) someone is prevented from falling into the pit in the first place. Everybody falls into the pit of sin and needs to be pulled out by the cross of Christ. In Mary's case, though, the cross of Christ (that is, the grace of God merited by Christ's sacrifice) bars her way and prevents her from ever falling into the pit. Mary is saved by prevention, not by rescue.

Now, you might say, "How could Jesus have saved Mary before he was born?" Well, keep in mind that Jesus is identical to the Second Person of the Trinity, the Son of God, so He existed before His Incarnation. "Yeah, fine," you might reply, "but he hadn't died on the cross yet. How could the grace of the cross be applied to Mary before it had happened?" Time is no object to God. God does not exist in time. He does not experience time in a linear sequence as we do. All moments are present to God, so it is no more trouble for Him to apply the merits of Christ's sacrifice to Mary or Abraham or Moses or anyone else who lived before Christ than it is for Him to apply it to those who live after Christ. And He doesn't even need a ship sling-shotting at warp speed around a star or a TARDIS to do it.

Fun fact: some theologians in the Church's history have believed that St. Joseph, St. John the Baptist, and the prophet Jeremiah were all sanctified in the womb, having the stain of original sin removed after their conceptions but before their births. With the latter two, certain Scripture passages suggest this: for Jeremiah, "Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you, before you were born, I consecrated you" (Jeremiah 1:5); with St. John the Baptist, Luke 1:41 says that John leaped in Elizabeth's womb and Elizabeth was "filled with the Holy Spirit." And with St. Joseph, it seemed fitting to some theologians that he who was to be the guardian of the Virgin and the protector of the Christ Child should be strengthened for this task (and perhaps also prepared for the life of perpetual virginity he was to lead with his holy wife). Neat, eh?

The Only Reason to Be a Catholic

Dear readers, I ask you: what is the point of being a Catholic?

Is it to carry on the traditions of your family, attending the same church that Mom & Dad went to, getting married in the same church Mom & Dad got married in, getting your kids baptized in the same church you were baptized in, so that you can be buried in the same cemetery Granny & Gramps are buried in? 

Is it a tribal designation, like the old joke: A man got lost in Belfast and wasn't sure if he was on the Catholic or Protestant side of town. Some rough-looking youths came up to him and asked, "Are you a Protestant or a Catholic?" Knowing the wrong answer could get him killed, he answered, "Actually, I'm an atheist." The youths looked puzzled and asked, "Yes, but are you a Protestant atheist or a Catholic atheist?"

Is it to have a sense of belonging and community? Perhaps that which you belong to is less important to you than that you belong, and it might as well be the local country club as the local parish? Or maybe you're simply trying to get the parishioner discount at the parochial school? Maybe using the Knights of Columbus for a little business networking?

These are insufficient reasons. The only reason to be a Catholic, the whole point to it, is that the Catholic faith reveals to us the purpose of life and helps us to fulfill it. I turn now to the first few entries in the venerable Baltimore Catechism.

1. Who made us? 

God made us.

2. Who is God?

God is the Supreme Being, infinitely perfect, who made all things and keeps them in existence.

3. Why did God make us?

God made us to show forth His goodness and to share with us His everlasting happiness in heaven.

4. What must we do to gain the happiness of heaven?

To gain the happiness of heaven we must know, love, and serve God in this world.

5. From whom do we learn to know, love, and serve God?

We learn to know, love, and serve God from Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who teaches us through the Catholic Church.

Every single human being who has ever lived has wondered, "What am I doing here?" asking both their origin and their purpose. Origin and purpose are fundamentally bound to one another: everything that is made is made for some reason, for some end, and is given that end or purpose or reason by its maker. Every person knows they have a purpose: they are enlivened when they have one and depressed when they have none. Modern folk tend to think that human beings should determine or create their own ultimate purpose for themselves, but this would only make sense if we were our own creators, which we are not. We did not bring ourselves into existence, so we cannot set our own ultimate reason for existing. That reason is inscribed in our very form, hardwired into us, part of the factory settings, so to speak, unalterable and irrevocable. 

Our purpose can only be made known to us by knowing the mind of the one who made us--that is, God. But who is this God who made us? He is the source of all existence, the creator of everything that is, having all perfections. And He made us out of pure generosity, absolute gratuity; He had no need to create us or anything--nothing could compel Him. Simply out of His goodness and His desire to share of Himself, God made us, destined for eternal happiness with Him. All we need do is follow His design for us, His design within us; for since He made us for Himself, our happiness will be in knowing and loving and serving Him. And yet we failed and continue to fail to heed this call, mysteriously rejecting that which will bring us fulfillment. So God comes to our aid, and helps us to know Him and love Him by revealing Himself to us, preeminently in the greatest event in history, in which God Himself condescended to become one of us in the person of Jesus Christ, teaching, dying, and rising, defeating death that we might live. In Christ our sins are forgiven and our unity with God is restored. In Christ we share in the very life of God Himself! And Christ continues his presence and his work on earth through his Body, the Church, built upon the rock of St. Peter, founded on the twelve stones of the Apostles, spread through the preaching of the Gospel message of salvation through Christ, nourished by those visible signs of his invisible grace, the sacraments.

This is the only reason to be a Catholic: to fulfill our destiny by knowing, loving, and serving God, taught by Christ and his Church. Family tradition and identity and belonging will follow from that, but those are ancillary concerns, attendant benefits of the grace of communion with the Triune God.

If this is not your reason for belonging to the Church, for attending Mass, I say: repent and be converted! Make Christ the center of your life! I say this as much to myself as anyone. We all need ever-deeper conversion to Christ, ever-strengthened unity with him, ever-greater love for him. Come and find your fulfillment! Come and find your purpose! Come and find your joy!

Was Paul Crucified for You?

I thought this joke was pretty funny:

They say the Protestant Reformation was the triumph of Paul over Peter, and that Fundamentalism is the triumph of Paul over Jesus.

This may require some explaining, and one rarely wants to explain a joke as it usually kills the humor, but this may provide some insight into the mindset of the Fundamentalist.

First, why would the Reformation be called the "triumph of Paul over Peter"? One might see it that way if one thought that the "Petrine" Catholic Church, with its emphasis on the successor of St. Peter and tradition and apostolic succession and works and such, had been conquered by the "pure Gospel" of justification by faith found in the letters of St. Paul, with his free-wheeling preaching all over the Mediterranean, even "opposing Peter to his face" (Galatians 2:11). No more popishness interjecting itself into our relationship with the Lord. Once again, Peter has been opposed to his face!

So then what's this second bit about? Why would Fundamentalism be called "the triumph of Paul over Jesus"? Here's why: notice that when you talk to a Fundamentalist about salvation, often they don't appeal to the Gospels to make their case; they instead point to the writings of St. Paul. They don't appeal to the words of Jesus, but to the words of Paul. For example:

"So, how are we saved?"
"Romans 8, justified by faith apart from works of the law, sola fide! Salvation by faith alone, irrespective of our works!"
"Yes, faith is certainly important, but Jesus said to gain eternal life, you must keep the commandments. So clearly our works or our actions or our keeping the moral law has something to do with our salvation."
"Yeah, yeah... but... but Paul said in 1 Corinthians...."

Oh, my hypothetical Fundamentalist brethren... You end up pitting Christ and Paul against each other, and you end up choosing Paul. Which is your savior? This is why the joke is funny!

Yes, St. Paul's writings make up the bulk of the New Testament, so his explanation of the Gospel message and the language and phrasing he uses sets a standard for how we understand it. Yes, we're going to rely a lot on his words and works. But we should not get so focused on the messenger that we forget the message. The joke above points to this tendency among some to focus on Paul over Jesus. It's not a new phenomenon; even in his own time people became so devoted to Paul that they primarily identified with him; Paul responded by asking if he had been crucified for them, if they were baptized into him (1 Corinthians 1:13). Paul wants to know nothing but Christ and him crucified (1 Corinthians 2:2). We must strive to do the same.

The Origins of the Creed

In the first few centuries after the birth, death, resurrection, and ascension of Christ, the hot topics of conversation within the Church often centered on these questions: who is Jesus? What is Jesus? How do we make sense of all of the things he said and did? He healed the sick, fed multitudes from a few loaves and fish, even raised the dead, even rose from the dead himself. He was clearly a prophet, perhaps the greatest of prophets, the Messiah who was to come and restore Israel. But he also said certain things, like “I and my Father are one,” and “He who has seen me has seen the Father.” Was… was he claiming to be equal to God somehow, or to be God Himself? How could Jesus be God if there is only one God? Could God become a human being and still be God? And even if Jesus were God, how would we reconcile that with him saying things like, “Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone,” or with the Gospels saying that Jesus grew in wisdom (does God need to learn anything)? Is Jesus a man? Is he God? Both? Neither? Something else? How do we express his identity?

Many people tried many solutions to the problem, but most of them tended to fall on one side or the other of the “God or man” equation. Docetists said that Jesus was really God, but only appeared to be human (“Docetist” from the Greek dokein meaning “to appear, to seem”); he didn’t really suffer or die, but sort of went through the motions, his human form being a mere suit of clothes or mirage. Adoptionists said that Jesus was really a human being, but was granted special favor by God and elevated or “adopted” at the moment of his baptism in the River Jordan (“This is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased”). Different Gnostic groups took some things they read in Neo-Platonic writers and constructed a whole mythos in which human souls were trapped in bodies by an evil creator god (the Demiurge), and Jesus was a spirit who had come to free them by giving them the knowledge that they were imprisoned (“Gnostic” from Greek gnosis meaning “knowledge”).

None of these seemed right. The general sense, gathered from Sacred Scripture, the apostolic tradition of the Church, and the teaching of the bishops around the world, was that Jesus had to be somehow both God and man. But how could that be? Many more made attempts. Some said that God was really one, but appeared in different forms at different times: sometimes as Father, sometimes as Son, sometimes as Spirit. Various ideas had this basic concept, and became known as monarchianism ( Greek mono + arche = “one beginning/origin/power”), or modalism (as in, “God appears in different modes: Father mode, Son mode, Spirit mode”), or patripassianism (Latin “pater” + “passio” = “The Father suffering,” meaning that though it appeared a different person, the Son, was suffering, the Son is just a mode of the Father, so it was really the Father who suffered on the cross). There were others, all falling to the same problem of not respecting both the unity of God and the distinction between the Father and the Son.

Many of these teachers began trying to make use of philosophical terms to help explain themselves, terms like substance, nature, and person. Several challenges stood in the way of this, though. One, the eastern part of the empire was largely Greek-speaking, while the west was Latin-speaking; add to this that the Greek theologians were using more terms than their Latin counterparts, and problems abound. The Latins heard ousia and physis and hypostasis and prosopon and tried to cram them into persona, natura, and substantia. It also didn’t help that the Greeks couldn’t decide what their terms meant—they had a bad habit of using these words without defining them. One person uses physis to mean “nature/essence/what-it-is,” while another uses it to mean “center of subjectivity/who-it-is.” Confusion abounded.

Then, a priest from Rome named Arius began teaching in the Egyptian city of Alexandria that the Son was distinct from the Father, but that he was a creature, the greatest of all creatures and nearly a god himself, but that “there was a time when the Son was not”: he was not eternal; he was not God. But, being that he died for our sins and was glorified by God, he was still worthy of our veneration.

This idea became very popular, especially among certain influential Roman nobles, and the Germanic barbarians living on the borders of the empire. Much of the Church in the Eastern part of the empire took to this new teaching; as St. Jerome wrote, “The world awoke and groaned to find itself Arian.” The western part of the empire still largely held to the traditional view laid out by Tertullian a century before: that Jesus was one person, but a person with two natures, one human and one divine.

Things got bad. Factions sprang up. People were persecuted. Bishops were forced into exile away from their cities.

In 325 AD, the emperor Constantine summoned all the bishops of the world to the resort town of Nicaea and asked them to settle the issue. More than 300 bishops from all over the empire attended, including two legates representing the Pope. This was the first ecumenical (“world-wide”) council in the Church’s history. The bishops discussed, and debated, even fought: St. Nicholas (yes, THAT St. Nicholas) was so furious with Arius that he punched him in the face! The bishops overwhelmingly agreed that Arius was dead wrong. They came up with a summary definition of the Church’s faith in Christ, adding to it at another council held 50 years later in Constantinople. Today we know this definition as the Nicene(-Constantinopolitan) Creed. You say it in Mass every Sunday.

(Tangential epilogue: People sometimes wonder, if the Creed is supposed to be the most basic and fundamental expression of the Christian faith, why is there no mention of the Eucharist, expressing the Church’s belief that it is truly the Body and Blood of Christ? The answer is simple: nobody disputed this point at the time. Creeds and council declarations address the points being controverted at the present time. The Eucharist as the Real Presence of Christ? That was obvious. The nature of Christ himself? That’s the hard stuff.)

Divine Logic

Catholics are very familiar with addressing the Blessed Virgin Mary as "Mother of God," just as we do in the Haily Mary: "Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners." This is an ancient title for Mary, which was officially approved and sanctioned by the Church at the third Ecumenical Council, at Ephesus, in 431 AD. Some people objected to it then because they had a distorted view of the nature of Christ, but this should be an easy one, right? It's simple logic:

Jesus is God.
Mary is the mother of Jesus.
Therefore, Mary is the mother of God.

But did you know that some Evangelical Christians object to this title today? They say it gives Mary too much honor to be called the Mother of God--to that I would respond, "If the shoe fits, wear it." I also heard one Evangelical in a debate try to show that calling Mary the Mother of God is absurd by making this counter-argument:

God is Trinity.
Mary is the mother of God.
Therefore, Mary is the mother of the Trinity.

"But this is absurd! No Christian believes Mary is the mother of the Trinity! See, Catholic, your logic is flawed!"

Indeed it is absurd, 'cause your logic is flawed.

There are two problems here. One is a formal problem, which may be a little complex to get into here (i.e. I'm not sure I understand it well enough to explain it), but suffice it to say that the way that syllogism is set up renders it invalid. I think it can be demonstrated with another example:

God is Trinity.
The Father is God.
Therefore, the Father is Trinity.

Well, that didn't work, did it? So the first issue is the form of the argument.

The other problem is called the fallacy of four terms. This is when a logical proposition uses one word in two different ways, so that the word does not mean the same thing every time it is used. Here is a handy example (borrowed from the Wikipedia page on the subject of this fallacy):

Major premise: Nothing is better than eternal happiness.

Minor premise: A ham sandwich is better than nothing.

Conclusion: A ham sandwich is better than eternal happiness.

The word "nothing" in the example above has two meanings, as presented: "nothing is better" means the thing being named has the highest value possible; "better than nothing" only means that the thing being described has some value. Therefore, "nothing" acts as two different words in this example, thus creating the fallacy of four terms.

Just as the word "nothing" is being used in to mean two different things in this example, so "God" is being used to mean two different things in the Evangelical example.

The three Persons of the Trinity are each fully God, so that it can properly be said of each, "The Father is God, the Son is God, the Spirit is God." We say that "God" can be predicated of each person of the Trinity, and everything that can be predicated of God-ness can be predicated of each of them, e.g. omnipotence, omnipresence, eternity, etc. Think of it like this: Nick is human. Jim is human. That means both possess human nature. Everything that can be said of human nature can be said of Nick and Jim: they are rational, they can see humor, etc. Just so, saying "The Father is God" and "The Son is God" means both possess the divine nature, and everything that can be said of the divine nature can be said of each of them: they are all-loving, all-just, all-merciful, etc.

BUT the process does not work in reverse: just because Nick and Jim share human nature, and just because the Father and the Son share divine nature, does not mean that everything that can be predicated of one can be predicated of the other. Though Nick and Jim share human nature, that does not mean that Nick is Jim. And though the Father and Son share divine nature, that does not mean the Father is the Son. The Father's fatherhood is unique to Him, and the Son's place as Son is unique to Him. Likewise, since it is only the Son that became incarnate in the Virgin's womb, only the Son can be said to have been born of her, and thus Mary is said to be Mother of God only as it relates to the Son.

No one should make the mistake of thinking that calling Mary "Mother of God" makes her the Mother of the entire Trinity, and no one should think that this title makes Mary superior or even equal to God. The title simply acknowledges that the one to whom Mary gave birth is truly the God, and that the God to whom Mary gave birth did truly become human. The only way you can deny the title Mother of God to Mary is to either deny that Jesus is truly human or that Jesus is truly God. And I don't think any who call themselves Christian would want to do that.

Salvation History in Three Minutes or Less

For those who have trouble keeping straight in their head whether Moses was before or after Jesus, I offer this brief account of salvation history:

In the beginning (and we mean "beginning" in the broadest sense, the sort of beginning that could span billions of years), God created everything, from angels to galaxies to cockroaches, and as creation's crowning achievement, he made human beings, endowed with intellects so they could know God and wills so they could love God and bodies so they could serve God in the material world. Humanity was to live in union with God. But these very first human beings disobeyed God and did the one thing He asked them not to do: they ate the fruit of the forbidden tree, and bit off more than they could chew. Their bond with God was broken by their own actions. So God banished them from paradise, and thus began the long, sad story of human death and misery. But even then God planned, in the fullness of time, to restore humanity to unity with Him.

Part of God's plan was to form humanity by establishing a special relationship with certain human beings, making covenants with them. He made a covenant with Noah that He would never again flood the entire earth and would no longer make war on humanity. He made a covenant with Abraham that He would bring forth from Abraham a holy people, a people set apart as God's own. He made a covenant with Moses to let Israel flourish in the land He would give them if they obeyed his commandments and laws. He made a covenant with David that David's descendants would rule Israel as a shepherd tends his sheep and always enjoy God's favor. And after the time of David, through the fall of the kingdoms of Israel and Judah, through the captivity of the people in Babylon, through their return to their land, the prophets, from Amos to Isaiah to Jeremiah to Malachi, continually proclaimed God's promises of His covenant, assuring the people that they would one day be fulfilled.

Let's put the contents of these covenants together: God promises to have peace with humanity; God promises to make a holy people; God promises that the people will flourish if they obey Him; God promises that the Son of David will lead this people. God fulfilled all of these covenants perfectly when He Himself came to fulfill them. God took flesh and became man in the person of Jesus Christ, and through his life, death, and resurrection, brought peace between God and humanity, made a holy people of those who believe in him (his Church), gave them the sacraments to give them spiritual nourishment and new life, and became the Good Shepherd who leads his flock.

After Christ's ascension, the apostles spread the Good News of this new and everlasting covenant between God and all humanity, as Christ had sent them to do, traveling to all corners of the known world and building up the Church. (Tradition has various apostles going everywhere from India to Spain to Ethiopia.) The apostles then appointed those who would succeed them in guiding the Church in holiness and teaching the true faith, and those ones in turn appointed successors, so that, two thousand years later, via a sort of apostolic chain of custody, we still profess with the faith of the apostles, and are taught, governed, and sanctified through the work of the apostolic ministry (bishops, priests, deacons).

God keeps His promises.

Approaching the Trinity: Avoiding the Extremes

This Sunday is the Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity. This great feast fittingly takes place very year after Pentecost, the holy day commemorating the descent of the Holy Spirit and the birth of the Church--after the ascension of Christ, sent by the Father, comes the sending of the Spirit, and thus we see the Triune God, one God in three Persons, made manifest to us. It's an appropriate moment to stop and consider for a moment the most mysterious of the mysteries of our faith.

I titled this post "Approaching the Trinity" because it is downright foolishness to think one can comprehend the Trinity. To understand God in His inmost being, in which unity is three-ness and three-ness is oneness? You can't get your arms around it; the best you can do is walk up to it. It's very hard to say what the Trinity is, but a bit easier to say what it isn't. In this post I'll show you some of the boundaries of thought on the Trinity (this is why the other half of the post's title is "Avoiding the Extremes"): you can know then that, if you find yourself thinking in this way, you've gone too far and are no longer thinking of God as He is.

Now, if you're approaching a mystery in which you are trying to see in what way something can be both one and three, there are two obvious ways you can err: overemphasizing the oneness, or overemphasizing the three-ness. The first of these errors often becomes a sort of modalism, while the second tends to become tritheism.

Modalism is the idea that God really, truly in His being is one, but he only appears to us in different persons; that is, God appears to us in different modes. Under this framework, the Israelites would have encountered God in "Father mode," and then God would have incarnated in "Son mode," then been present to the Church in "Spirit mode." It seems nice and tidy, and avoids that messiness of trying to explain how one God can be three different Persons, and was the sort of thought that many an early heretic fell into (and not a few modern theologians, I'd wager). BUT this way of thinking doesn't fit our data from Scripture. When Christ speaks of the Father and the Spirit, he speaks as though they are different from him; yes, he says, "The Father and I are one," but he also says, "My Father and I will come and dwell with him," and "I will send you a Paraclete." Sometimes his language denotes unity, sometimes differentiation. What's the solution? Either there is, in some way, both unity and differentiation, or we would be forced to conclude that Christ is a liar, putting on some show to make us think there are three Persons involved when really there's just one. And since all parties would agree that Christ is God, and God does not lie, the last solution does not work. So modalism can't be true.

Tritheism is the idea that God really, truly is three different beings, is three gods, but that they are all one in willing the same thing, or something like that. I think that many people today tend to conceive of God in this way, that there are these three beings each of whom we call God, but we call them one God because they just seem to get along so well. Not only that, I think most people tend to become subordinationists, too, placing the Persons of the Trinity into different degrees or ranks, one being somehow higher than the other: when they think of God, they think of the Father as being really God, and then, oh yeah, the Son, he's pretty god-ish, too, and I guess the Spirit, we can't leave him out. Unfortunately, as with modalism, you could find scriptural support for such a position, as many early heretics did, simply by pointing to all those places where the Persons are spoken of as distinct: how can Christ pray to his Father if they are one being? Well, we could stray off into complex discussions of the Trinity sharing one act of existence, or the thornier questions of what exactly we mean by "God exists" if God isn't a thing among other things in the universe, but rather the ground and source of all that exists, and other such deep metaphysical topics that I'm not sure I understand myself, so instead I'll go with something a bit simpler. Anything that is to be called "God" must be infinite. There cannot be more than one infinite, because in order to be two, there would have to be something that was not the other thing, and thus neither one would really be infinite. So, if God is infinite, God must be one; hence, we cannot understand the Trinity to be three gods.

I would hope that this could be of help in your spiritual life. If you're thinking of the Triune God either as an actor with three masks, or three guys who are just super-chummy, then you're not really thinking of God at all. To help hammer these points home, take a look at the creed attributed to St. Athanasius of Alexandria, one of the great Fathers of the Church, who defended the divinity of Christ and the integrity of the Trinity against heretics of his day. Let this be a small start in coming to know God better as He is.