The pragmatism of the Trinity

A fresh look at a heavily freighted doctrine

A long, long time ago – December 14^th, to be precise – I quoted William James’s definition of “the true,” as understood in the philosophy of Pragmatism: “The true,” he wrote, “is the name of whatever proves itself to be good in the way of belief, and good, too, for definite, assignable reasons.”[1] I went on in that post to quote what he had written in the same lecture, some pages earlier: “Pragmatism unstiffens all our theories, limbers them up and sets each one to work… [The pragmatic method is the] attitude of looking away from first things, principles, ‘categories,’ supposed necessities; and of looking towards last things, fruits, consequences, facts.”[2] That in a nutshell is pragmatism. Its emphasis is on the fruits of a belief, not on its roots. Obviously, every significant and influential belief has its time-honored roots, and roots are certainly not to be dismissed as immaterial (after all, without roots there can be no life); but anything of a spiritual, religious, or philosophical nature that is held to be true should also “work” for us, prove its “cash value” (as James put it, perhaps with less felicity than some might like), and demonstrate that it is “good… for definite, assignable reasons.” That’s a tall order, especially when one sets out to discuss — as I intend to do here — the Christian idea that “God” is a “Trinity” of what are often inaccurately referred to as “persons.” Put in the form of a question, how can such an abstract, apparently self-contradictory notion of ultimate reality have any practical application for anyone? To jump ahead of myself, my answer to that question will be that, in fact, the concept of the Trinity is primarily and firmly rooted in a pragmatic perspective, and that its appeal lies in its capacity to meet certain universal human intuitions and longings.