The God We Can't See (And Why We Keep Trying)
This reflection was shared in the June 12, 2026 issue of E-Tidings, our Pine Ridge church newsletter.
All summer long, the board outside the church office is collecting your questions -- written on sticky notes, about God, faith, the Bible, doubt, or whatever else you've been carrying. Each issue, I'll take one or two and do my best to answer them.
"I don't think I understand the Trinity."
"Does humanity have an innate need to a physical representation of God? It seems every religion portrays God in some way: i.e. cross, statue, banners, golden calf, etc."
I want to answer these together. Underneath, they share so much in common -- both are really asking: How do we connect with a God we can't fully see or understand?
Let's start with the Trinity -- and I want to begin honestly: I don't fully understand it either. Nobody does. That's not a cop-out; that's actually the point. The doctrine of the Trinity is Christianity's attempt to say, in the most precise language we can find, here is what we know about God, and here is where our knowledge runs out.
Here's what the early church landed on after centuries of serious wrestling: one God, three persons -- Father, Son, and Holy Spirit -- co-equal, co-eternal, distinct but never divided. Not three gods. Not one God wearing three different hats depending on the day. Something more mysterious than either of those.
The best way I've found to hold it isn't mathematical -- it's relational. Before there was anything else, there was relationship. The Trinity describes a God who is not a solitary being sitting alone in eternity, but a community of love in motion -- a giving and receiving, a knowing and being known, that has always existed. And here is the heart of it: if God is love, as 1 John puts it, then love has always had someone to love. The overflow of that love -- outward, toward us, toward creation -- is the whole story of Scripture.
No analogy captures it perfectly. Every metaphor for the Trinity breaks down if you push it far enough. That's not a failure of the doctrine. That's the doctrine doing exactly what it's supposed to do: pointing us toward a mystery too large for any one image to hold.
Which brings us to the second question. Someone asked: Does humanity have an innate need for a physical representation of God? I want to gently push back on one word: need. I'd say tendency instead, and the distinction matters.
We are embodied creatures. God made us that way. We live in bodies; we know the world through sight and touch and sound and smell. So when we try to reach toward something we can't see, can't measure, can't hold -- of course we tend to reach for something we can. The golden calf in Exodus isn't a story about evil people. It's a story about frightened people whose visible leader had disappeared up a mountain, and who needed something to hold onto. That impulse is deeply, recognizably human.
This is also why genuine mystery is so hard for us. Mystery doesn't fit in your hand. It won't sit still long enough to be categorized and filed away. We like what we can see, understand, and -- if we're honest -- control. A visible symbol gives us something to orient toward.
The Reformed tradition has historically been cautious about religious images, wary that the symbol might start replacing the reality it was meant to point toward. But it hasn't eliminated symbols, because symbols themselves aren't the problem. Our own Book of Order puts it cleanly: physical objects in worship are "not objects to be worshiped, but signs that point to the grace of God in Jesus Christ." The cross on our wall isn't God. It points to God -- specifically, to what God did in a particular body, in a particular moment in history.
And that's where these two questions meet. The Incarnation -- God becoming human in Jesus Christ -- is the answer to both. We struggle to connect with an invisible, incomprehensible God. So God didn't stay invisible. The Word became flesh. God entered time, space, and matter -- became someone you could see and touch and follow -- because God knows exactly how we're made.
The Trinity tells us God has always been relational. The cross tells us God crossed every distance to reach us. Both say the same thing: we are not alone in this reaching.
More questions are waiting on the board, and I'll be back with another one or two in the next issue. If you're traveling or just can't make it by the building, reach out or drop your question in the comment section below -- anonymous is always fine. Every question is worth asking. Keep them coming.
