Metaphors matter. Isaac Newton likened God to one “very skilled in geometry and mechanics.” Soon this mathematically skilled mechanic was widely referred to as the Supreme Being, quantitatively surpassing all other beings. But it wasn’t always so. John’s Gospel likens God to an author needing only a Word to speak a universe into existence. In this metaphor “God” refers to a reality qualitatively distinct from created “existence”—authors and their characters, after all, exist in a very different way. A “God” who can’t even be said to exist the way people, rocks, and mountains exist sounds more like agnosticism than traditional Christianity. But that’s because the metaphor of God as Supreme Being has become so entrenched that people forget Christians traditionally described God as the Holy Trinity of Father, Son, and Spirit. Far from being a shibboleth testing for “doctrinal purity,” the Trinity made this unknowable God knowable, thereby bringing all souls to glory.
