The Puzzle of the Trinity

Discipleship in the Age of the Holy Spirit

Dawn Duryea

Jun 02, 2026

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For as long as I can remember I have had a great fascination with puzzles. I remember on the bookshelf in my Grandma D.’s living room sat several wooden puzzles that my great grandfather made, including one where you jump pegs and try to clear the board, leaving only one behind. I remember playing that solitary game for many hours and I can remember clearly leaving 2 or 3 pegs on the board - but I don’t remember ever SOLVING it completely. But the activity completely engrossed me as I strove to understand the moves necessary to solve the puzzle. I knew there was a pattern behind the solution, but I couldn’t perceive it. In my case that only heightened the desire to find it.  I still have that puzzle on my shelf now as a reminder of those days and hours of striving to understand something beyond me.

 

As I matured, I accepted more challenging puzzles into my life. I didn’t seem to care if I solved them or not, it was more the seeking of answers that drew me, answers NOT readily apparent, answers I had to work HARD at. As a teenager I spent my afternoons solving crossword puzzles and eventually branched out into the magazines which contained a VARIETY of paper and pencil puzzles. My favorite ones were the logic puzzles where you had a little story and had to figure out who did what. Usually they provided a chart and you x-ed out the boxes. That action of crossing off boxes until only one solution remained was extremely satisfying to me. But those magazines only held maybe 4 of those logic puzzles in each edition, so then I would turn to the cryptograms, also a pattern recognizing activity - only in words. There were always plenty of those along with the crossword puzzles. I could usually solve all the cryptograms and most of the crossword puzzles.

 

Then, in 1980, there came a NEW face to the puzzle scene – one that became an ICON of my generation – the Rubik’s cube - invented by Hungarian architect Ernő Rubik. Surprisingly, he didn’t set out to invent a GAME, his original purpose was how to get many small parts to work together as part of a single mechanical system and still retain the ability to move independently. In other words, Rubik was primarily interested in engineering a stable, twistable structure in which each layer could rotate freely without the entire mechanism falling apart. He didn’t realize the potential of his invention until one day he turned the mechanism and scrambled up the colored squares and then spent several months trying to put it right again!

 

It sold locally in Budapest from 1977 to gaming enthusiasts but didn’t break out into the international scene until 1980 when it made its debut at Toy Fairs in London, Paris and New York and then became an international sensation. Ideal Toys bought the rights to this remarkable puzzle and named it after its inventor Ernő Rubik. By the end of 1980, it had won several awards for best toy in Germany, UK, France and US and by 1981, the Rubik’s Cube had become a craze, and it is estimated that in the period from 1980 to 1983 around 200 million Rubik’s Cubes were sold worldwide.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

HERE was a NEW puzzle and a very CHALLENGING one!

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n fact, I can say with total certainty after many hours of twisting this colorful cube in both fascination and frustration that THIS puzzle is beyond my ability to solve. In the past, I have managed to solve one face at a time pretty readily and even occasionally made it to two faces of solid color, but the other 4 faces remain beyond my ability to perceive the movements necessary and set RIGHT the proper pattern.

Now you might think this disappointment of a solution would put me OFF puzzle solving, but THERE you would be wrong. I still strive after solutions which escape me – I have found it to be the driving force in my intellectual life. Now, I have moved beyond material puzzles and I am striving after solutions to the GREATEST puzzle of all, not one I expect to solve in my lifetime but the ultimate puzzle of GOD.

 

Part of the puzzle of God is what is God’s relationship to humankind – as the Psalmist asks:

What are humans that you are mindful of them, mortals that you care for them? (Psalm 8:4)

We can start to unravel this puzzle by examining our scripture from Genesis – the Creation story.

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters (Genesis 1:1-2).

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We can see that in the beginning the earth and sky lacked order, CHAOS reigned and there was darkness, but the Spirit of God was there – from the beginning the Holy Spirit was there with God laying out the pattern of the world. Lest you think this Triune God was an invention of the imagination of the early church fathers and mothers, we can see the presence of the Trinity in this Creation story for then in the very next verse, (vs. 3) God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. And the light was good. We know that Christ is the light of the world (John 1:5; 8:12) and there in the very first words of the Bible, LONG before the Incarnation – Christ is with God and the Holy Spirit working together in the Creation of the World.

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This Sunday we celebrate the MYSTERY of the Trinity. What is the meaning of the triune nature of God, what does it say to us? If God is the one and only God, why are there three persons? How does that help us solve the PUZZLE of God’s nature and God’s concern for humanity?

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In all my seeking, I have gathered much information and putting this information in order so that it makes sense is very much like solving ANOTHER kind of puzzle, this one like a jigsaw puzzle that contains my understanding of the world. The Trinity presents itself to my imagination as a COMPLEX PUZZLE, much like the Rubik’s cube, only this one is not shaped like a cube.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I have great admiration for Plato, as you may have noticed, and one of his discoveries was that there are only 5 perfect three-dimensional shapes, which means that the faces, angles and edges are all congruent, or identical in shape and size, and that at each vertex the same number of faces meet. There are only five such shapes possible: a tetrahedron with four triangular faces, a cube with six square faces, an octahedron with eight triangular faces, a dodecahedron with twelve pentagonal faces, and an icosahedron with twenty triangular faces.

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This is fascinating to me – out of ALL the possibilities, ALL the possible arrangements of lines and forms, these shapes present themselves in their REGULARITY, in their order – a fascinating pattern to study. Why only 5? I can’t help but thinking that this holds significance for the pattern of the world. You may wonder - why am I even bringing this up?

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I find it INTERESTING that there is not a Platonic solid in three-dimensional space which supports three identical faces. Now, an EQUILATERAL TRIANGLE on paper has three equal sides and three equal angles but only exists in two-dimensional space – the sides are flat, lacking substance, missing something and refuse to come to life in our reality. But there is a Platonic solid that contains FOUR equal faces – the tetrahedron (or what we regular people call a pyramid) made up of FOUR equilateral triangles, FOUR equal faces and exists fully and substantially in this three-dimensional space we occupy - like the Pyramids of Giza. What could that mean for our understanding of the Trinity?

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Could the addition of another face breathe new life into this PUZZLING doctrine?

The Trinity to me showcases the COMPLEXITY of this God we serve. Starting with the Rubik’s cube - with its six faces, we can then start to imagine a similar type of a puzzle as we start to examine the Trinity closer. Now don’t ask me how one would manufacture one of these pyramid puzzles – for now, we will just have to rely on our imagination and in the spirit of Einstein run it as a thought experiment. As we attempt to solve this complex puzzle of the Trinity and turn it about in our minds, we can start to solve ONE SIDE of the puzzle, that is to bring one FACE into focus, and for most people that is the face of JESUS. We know a lot about Jesus from the New Testament writings and we can come closer to deciphering an image of Jesus because he was human. Those pieces of his humanity easily come together to form a solid face on this Trinity puzzle. But we know that Jesus also was fully God and those pieces are more indistinct, low resolution, those are the ones which refuse to fit into place and integrate with the more human pieces. Jesus was a COMPLICATED man made more complicated by the addition of his Godhead and since he lived so long ago we can’t EVEN say that we fully know his human side, but I think you would agree that Jesus is the face of God which has the highest resolution for us. And so, we keep coming back to the ONE side we can solve of this Trinitarian puzzle, probably because it makes us feel like we have accomplished something.

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But I want to bring your attention to the OTHER sides which give fuller meaning and construct to our complete understanding of God. We should give some thought to bringing the other faces into focus, the Face of our Creator God and also the Face of the Holy Spirit. For it is only when ALL sides of the puzzle are properly aligned with ALL the faces in full resolution (high def) that we will understand the whole nature of God. It is then, and only then, that our understanding will be complete.

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And you may be wondering what about the FOURTH face of this puzzle? What will we find there?

Why it is US, human beings, created in the image of God, who contain the light of creation in their souls and join together with the other three faces to complete this puzzle. God created us NOT on a whim, NOT as an afterthought, but as companions and friends, co-workers in creation.

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We are the Face of God to the world in this age of the Holy Spirit. We are the hands and feet of Christ and we are the final face of the puzzle.

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Don’t worry if you can’t understand all this. We see DIMLY now (1 Corinthians 13:12) and most things are confusing to us, because we haven’t yet SOLVED all the faces of the puzzle. We don’t even know who WE are, for our definition is intricately intertwined with the definition of God. We may be fooled into thinking that we are individuals with full autonomy but look at all these pieces - they are fastened together and even though they can move SOMEWHAT independently – they rely on each other to hold together and to present a solid face to the world.

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The world seems so DARK and sometimes we can’t see God at all. Why are some people so cruel, why are some hatreds so stubborn to erase. We wonder why people just can’t get along and why the terrors of war continue to rage in so many places. Why do people think they are right and everyone else is wrong? It’s all so hard to understand.

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But we don’t need to UNDERSTAND it, we don’t need to have a SOLUTION to the world’s problems – we just need to SHINE our light.

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This light that is contained in our hearts, the light we came here today to rekindle, the light of God which lives in each of our souls. A unique light for each one. The light of Creation, the light of the world (Matthew 5:14).

We are the face of God that the world sees now.

At annual conference this week, Rev. Charlotte Abrams brought forth an image that stuck with me, so I am going to borrow it. It comes from a comment a young Robert Louis Stevenson made to his nanny one night as he watched the lamplighters at work:

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“See; look there; there’s a man poking holes in the darkness.”

A powerful image – poking holes in the darkness.

Going around with your light, poking holes in the darkness of this world.

That’s all, it’s so simple.

You let your light shine and your neighbor shines his light and pretty soon all the little lights join into one big light and - poof! - the darkness is gone.

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In the beginning God created us in the image of God and breathed the Holy Spirit into us. From the beginning, God spoke and called the Light (Jesus) into being and since it has shone on all of Creation. God called this Creation very good. We are part of this very good Creation and God has given us dominion over all. Humanity as the capstone of Creation, has been commissioned to steward and extend the Light of Creation to all mankind (Great Commission), thus continuing the work of the Triune God. And we are called into this work by the Holy Spirit. We are the ONLY face of God that people can see in this age of the Holy Spirit.

God spoke the light of Creation into being and since then has continued to shine. A part of this light lives on in us and we are to bear it to the world. When you are despairing remember that that light STILL SHINES in the darkness, and the darkness has not yet overcome it (John 1:5).

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Prayer

Creator God, Light of the World, Holy Spirit

We come before you today to remember where we came from and where we belong.

We bring ourselves to be renewed in your presence.

To rekindle our flame of love which wavers thin and unsteady in this dark world.

It flickers and we fear it may soon go out.

We come together to be strengthened in community

To realize we need each other in ways we cannot always explain.

Come and illuminate our darkness

Come and revive our spirits

Come and awaken our hearts with the flame of thy love

So that we may bear your love and your light to the world.