The Paradise Trinity

10:4.1Of all ab­so­lute as­so­ci­a­tions, the Par­a­dise Trin­ity (the first tri­unity) is unique as an ex­clu­sive as­so­ci­a­tion of per­sonal De­ity. God func­tions as God only in re­la­tion to God and to those who can know God, but as ab­so­lute De­ity only in the Par­a­dise Trin­ity and in re­la­tion to uni­verse to­tal­ity.

10:4.2Eter­nal De­ity is per­fectly uni­fied; nev­er­the­less there are three per­fectly in­di­vid­u­al­ized per­sons of De­ity. The Par­a­dise Trin­ity makes pos­si­ble the si­mul­ta­ne­ous ex­pres­sion of all the di­ver­sity of the char­ac­ter traits and in­fi­nite pow­ers of the First Source and Cen­ter and his eter­nal co-or­di­nates and of all the di­vine unity of the uni­verse func­tions of un­di­vided De­ity.

10:4.3The Trin­ity is an as­so­ci­a­tion of in­fi­nite per­sons func­tion­ing in a non­per­sonal ca­pac­ity but not in con­tra­ven­tion of per­son­al­ity. The il­lus­tra­tion is crude, but a fa­ther, son, and grand­son could form a cor­po­rate en­tity which would be non­per­sonal but nonethe­less sub­ject to their per­sonal wills.

10:4.4The Par­a­dise Trin­ity is real. It ex­ists as the De­ity union of Fa­ther, Son, and Spirit; yet the Fa­ther, the Son, or the Spirit, or any two of them, can func­tion in re­la­tion to this self­same Par­a­dise Trin­ity. The Fa­ther, Son, and Spirit can col­lab­o­rate in a non-Trin­ity man­ner, but not as three De­i­ties. As per­sons they can col­lab­o­rate as they choose, but that is not the Trin­ity.

10:4.5Ever re­mem­ber that what the In­fi­nite Spirit does is the func­tion of the Con­joint Ac­tor. Both the Fa­ther and the Son are func­tion­ing in and through and as him. But it would be fu­tile to at­tempt to elu­ci­date the Trin­ity mys­tery: three as one and in one, and one as two and act­ing for two.

10:4.6The Trin­ity is so re­lated to to­tal uni­verse af­fairs that it must be reck­oned with in our at­tempts to ex­plain the to­tal­ity of any iso­lated cos­mic event or per­son­al­ity re­la­tion­ship. The Trin­ity func­tions on all lev­els of the cos­mos, and mor­tal man is lim­ited to the fi­nite level; there­fore must man be con­tent with a fi­nite con­cept of the Trin­ity as the Trin­ity.

10:4.7As a mor­tal in the flesh you should view the Trin­ity in ac­cor­dance with your in­di­vid­ual en­light­en­ment and in har­mony with the re­ac­tions of your mind and soul. You can know very lit­tle of the ab­so­lute­ness of the Trin­ity, but as you as­cend Par­adis­e­ward, you will many times ex­pe­ri­ence as­ton­ish­ment at suc­ces­sive rev­e­la­tions and un­ex­pected dis­cov­er­ies of Trin­ity su­prem­acy and ul­ti­macy, if not of ab­so­lute­ness.