I asked for this book for Christmas on a bit of a whim (which seems a little appropriate for an author known best for her Lord Peter Wimsey books), but I’ve been delighted with meeting up with a new “mere Christian” writer after the heart of C. S. Lewis. Dorothy Sayers was one of that band of Inklings that included J. R. R. Tolkien and Charles Williams, and I was wondering about her Christian writings. It hasn’t been disappointing.

Sayers investigates statements made in different Christian creeds and slowly and methodically builds her case for using the human act of creativity as a model for understanding the Trinity. She spends an entire chapter explaining both the help and the danger present in such metaphors, but I admit that I love things like this. I’m never going to read St. Thomas Aquinas’ “Summa Theologica” — heck, I may not even make it through St. Augustine’s “On the Trinity” — but if someone who can will do it and give me a mental picture from it, I’ll happily amuse myself with all the rest of the Philistines.

Just in case anyone else is the same kind of blockhead, I’ll do a quick rundown on how it works, though I admit, this is more for my own fun that by way of real epiphany to others. The book itself is what you want to consult for the complete picture. Still, sometimes blogging gets to be a selfish act, I guess. So …

Sayers breaks down the creative act into three parts — the Idea, the Energy and the Power. This doesn’t need to be the act of only a writer, poet, artist or one of the other people whose creativity is writ large enough for all to see. The same action occurs in all of us when we make something happen — bake a loaf of bread, tell a joke, draw a funny doodle. But it’s easier to see with the “creative types” so let’s say we’re talking about William Shakespeare writing “Julius Caesar”:

• The Idea — This is the easiest thing to understand. At some point, Shakespeare conceives of the play and begins to consider details, characters and dialog. The Idea corresponds to God the Father.
• The Energy — Having gotten the idea, Shakespeare has to carry out all the activity necessary to realize what he’s envisioned. He has to write it in order to communicate the Idea to others. It’s sort of like the wonderful scene in “Amadeus” when Mozart tells his friend and patron that his opera is all finished because it’s all complete in his head and the rest is just scribbling. “Write it down!” the friend thunders. “It’s no good to anybody in your head.” And of course, they’re both right. The Energy corresponds to God the Son, who actualized God’s intention in human flesh.
• The Power — The power is the impact it has on the audience. Again, considering “Julius Caesar”, the audience went through all the emotions called for — they were appalled and stirred and curious and afraid — and at the end, they knew the Idea of “Julius Caesar.” The play might have a different impact for different people, (and of course, it might not have any impact at all for others) but the Power of the play is the force that would change them a little bit, stay in their mind, make them want to re-enact scenes the next day for their friends. The Power corresponds to The Holy Spirit.

Isn’t that just an amazing thing to contemplate? I’ve been hearing of ways to try to understand the Trinity since my catechism, and it seems to me that none of them helped me quite as much as that simple model. Anyone can understand The Son — He was, after all, one of us. We have words to read and human actions to consider, albeit the actions of one with glorified human nature. And all humanity throughout history understands the basic idea of the gods or a god, though God Himself is endless and unsearchable. But what in the world do you make of the Holy Spirit? It may just be me, but I’ve always found Him the most difficult, the most fleeting and evanescent. He has seemed to me sometimes like a shooting star whose existence you can only detect in the trail, in the wake and what is left behind. We know He acts in harmony with the others, and if we’ve read Motovilov’s conversation with St. Seraphim, we know that “in acquiring the Spirit of God consists the true aim of the Christian life.” But how does that actually work?

As I said, it may be a very subjective need to have such helps and parables. But in any case, I write it down in case anyone else can benefit.