The Simple Beauty of Christianity: The Father, The Son & The Holy Ghost

The concept of the Holy Trinity appears quite bizarre and nonsensical when one first encounters it. Jesus is God, even though he's Son of God. The Holy Ghost is some type of third God - different, but somehow one and the same.

It's all a bit odd.

However, it becomes a lot simpler once you realise that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost is essentially just God, Man and the Soul.

We mentioned in the last post that Jesus can be viewed as an everyman. That is, a figure in a story who stands in for all men. Symbolic of man (and woman) in general.

Viewed through this lens the Holy Ghost makes much more sense. God is the father, the creator. The Son of God is man in general - that's me, you, everyone else, all the other humans - the creations, or children of God. And the Holy Ghost is the soul or essence within us.

After all, just take the name in its literal meaning. What is a ghost, but a soul - the bit left over after we die (if you believe we have a soul, of course). Likewise, take the term Holy Spirit - spirit just being another synonym for ghost or soul.

So the Holy Ghost or Spirit is the soul within us. Different to God in concept, but ultimately from God and of God. Like our bodies and the physical world in general. In fact, taken more widely the Holy Spirit can also be viewed as denoting the animating spirit within the world. The divine spark that gives the material world life. It's all part of God. So it's all one, though the three things are separate as concepts.

This interpretation also makes much more sense of things like the virgin birth. When taken literally people are like, "Duh, so God impregnated a virgin? How can you believe that?"

However, when you understand it as a metaphor it makes perfect sense. Man - people in general - are the creation of God. So in this symbolic story about an ideal or perfected version of man (Jesus), the father of that man is quite naturally stated to be God. Plus, it wouldn't quite carry the same romance or poetry if the father of the ideal man had been Dave. Or Bob, or Bill ..or Joseph even.

We all understand that a child comes from its parents, and that they come from their parents. Who, in turn, come from theirs. And so on and so forth. But ultimately it all goes back to God. So as a metaphor it works rather well - if you believe in God that is.

And this is the thing. Whether you believe, or you don't believe, or if you're agnostic. In many ways religion is just asking the question. God, Man and the Soul is the natural focus of our wonderment. We've all lain in bed at times and wondered:

"Is there a God? Do I have a soul? What happens when I die? Is this physical world all there is?"

Whatever our personal answers we all understand the concepts; and people only fail to see them in the concept of the Holy Trinity because they take Christianity too literally (or, ironically, not literal enough when it comes to the actual term ghost). Both the true believers and the mocking atheists are equally guilty of this in my opinion.