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SEX AND THE TRINITY

Charles Williams, close friend of C.S. Lewis and member of that illustrious group of intellectuals known as the Inklings, had a deep understanding of God’s design for human sexuality. In writing about Dante’s portrayal of romantic love in The Divine Comedy, Williams says that that the poet’s vision signifies three things.

First, it’s a picture of the Trinity: One God “subsisting” in Three Persons. Second, it’s a reminder of the Incarnation: humanity and divinity seamlessly bonded in the Person of Jesus Christ. Third, it’s a symbol of something Williams likes to call the “mystery of co-inherence”: the intimate communion of me in you and you in me.

Jesus expressed it this way in His high priestly prayer: “As You, Father, are in Me, and I in You, [I pray] that they may be one in Us …” (John 17:21).

This is what the Image of God in man is really all about. The God we worship does not exist in isolation. On the contrary, He has been in community for all eternity. The three Persons of the Trinity – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – interact with one another in perfect communion. That truth helps us better understand what the apostle John had in mind when He said that “God is Love” (1 John 4:8).

It’s also why God said that “it is not good for man to be alone” (Genesis 2:18). After all, how could one man, who was by himself, reflect the full Image of a God whose very nature exists in communion? That only became possible when Adam saw Eve advancing toward him in the full splendor of feminine beauty and said, “This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh” (Genesis 2:23).

All of this leads to an inescapable conclusion with regard to our sexuality. In a profound and wonderful way, our sexual lives are intended to mirror the reality and beauty of the Trinity in our marital relationships.

As theologian George Weigel explains, when we view God’s directives for our sexuality in this way, “the first moral question shifts from ‘What am I forbidden to do?’ to ‘How do I live a life of sexual love that conforms to my dignity as a human person?’”* Sex, then, rightly understood and practiced, is in a very real sense fundamental to mankind’s function, purpose, and destiny within the miracle of God’s creation.

*George Weigel, The Truth of Catholicism:  Ten Controversies Explored (New York:  Cliff Street Books, 2001), 104-105.