Many months ago I wrote an article entitled “The Mysteries of Atheism” in which I highlighted the mysterious trinity which all atheists acknowledge albeit without knowing it, or, to be precise, the two trinities that they unknowingly acknowledge, namely the trinity of space and the trinity of time. I pointed out that the wholeness or unity of space consisted of three inseparable and consubstantial dimensions (length, breadth and depth), and the wholeness or unity of time also consisted of three inseparable and consubstantial dimensions (past, present and future). These trinities are as mysterious as the Holy Trinity insofar as the oneness or unity is inseparable from the triune “threeness.” 

For Christians, who acknowledge a Trinitarian God and believe with Gerard Manley Hopkins that the world is charged with his grandeur, there is little surprise that the physical fabric of the cosmos is made in his Trinitarian image. We can see the trinity of space and the trinity of time as what might be called God’s fingerprints on his handiwork. For the atheist, however, who refuses to accept the existence of God and who is accustomed to ridiculing Christians for their belief in an “irrational” Trinity, the triune nature of the universe is much more problematic. 

So much for the quandary that atheists face in the light of the trinity of physics. More recently, after having a good and healthy conversation with a Muslim on a flight home from a speaking engagement, I was struck by a similar quandary that those who follow Islam must face, not so much in the light of the trinity of physics, though this should certainly give them pause for thought, but in the trinity of metaphysics. 

The transcendental or metaphysical dimension of reality has been described by Plato and by the great Christian scholastic philosophers as the unity of the good, the true and the beautiful, placing a trinity at the heart of both physics and metaphysics. I believe that Christ is referring to his own incarnation of this transcendental trinity when he tells us that he is the way, and the truth, and the life. The good can be seen as “the way” of virtue, which is love (caritas); the true is “the truth” of right reason leading to knowledge (scientia); the beautiful is “the life” of creation or creativity (poiesis). Thus we see how Christ is the fulfillment of the transcendental reason of the Greeks as he is also the fulfillment of the covenantal faith of the Jews. He is, therefore, the unity and incarnation of faith and reason as he is also the unity and incarnation of the transcendental trinity of the good, the true and the beautiful.

Once again, we see that the Trinitarian God has made the cosmos in his image, weaving the Trinity, i.e. himself, into the pattern of the magic carpet of physics and metaphysics. Even more beautiful is the fact that the glorious trinity of the good, the true and the beautiful is comprised of three other trinities, interwoven within it: the good is a trinity; the true is a trinity; and the beautiful is a trinity. The transcendentals are nothing less than a glorious trinity of trinities! 

Let’s explore this wonderful trinity of trinities a little closer.

Since the good is synonymous with love, it is always the laying down of ourselves sacrificially for the beloved. As such, love is always the triune dynamism of the lover, the beloved and the love that the lover gives to the beloved. Love, i.e. the good, is a trinity.

Since the true is the truth of right reason leading to knowledge, it is always the engagement of ourselves sacrificially with the “other” beyond ourselves, i.e., the subjecting of ourselves to the objective facts which we experience through our physical senses, the “stuff” of which our intellect endeavors to “make sense.” The true is therefore always the triune dynamism of the knower, the thing known and the knowledge that the thing known gives to the knower. Reason, i.e. the true, is a trinity. 

Since the beautiful is “the life” of creation or creativity, it is always the opening of ourselves to the beauty that we see in God’s Creation, and it is this beauty that we seek and discover in our own procreative acts of sub-creation by which we make things from other things that already exist. The beautiful is always the triune dynamism of the beholder, the thing beheld and the gift of harmony that the thing beheld bestows upon the beholder. (It must be stressed that beauty is not in the eye of the beholder, which might be blind, but in the intrinsic, objective beauty of the thing beheld. Something beautiful does not become ugly because we fail to see its beauty.) On a deeper level, the beautiful is the fruit of the marriage between the Inspirer (the Muse) and the one inspired (the artist), in which case we can see the Giver of the gift of creativity as the Bridegroom, the artist who receives the gift of inspiration as the Bride, and the beautiful work of art as the Child of the marriage. The beautiful is, therefore, a trinity.

Since space is a trinity, time is a trinity, and the good, the true and the beautiful, is not only a trinity but a trinity of trinities, where does it leave my Muslim interlocutor who of necessity must deny the Trinity or else deny his own faith? It leaves him in the same place as the atheist, in the presence of a mystery that he cannot explain and which makes a mockery of his precious presumptions. God is not a Lonely God, to employ Chesterton’s phrase for the Islamic Allah. He is not a Monolith. He is God the Good, God the True, and God the Beautiful — Father, Son and Holy Ghost. Deo gratias!