I used to receive teaching about God that began with the essence of God. This essence was defined in such a way that God appeared non-relational.   Relationships did not appear essential to God’s Being.  This impersonal divine essence would be God with or without a relationship with anyone else.  He is an isolated individual turned in on his own perfection.  

I have since learned that we don’t begin with the one divine essence or substance.  Rather, we first say Father, Son and Spirit as one communion of love.  So we begin with the Triune Communion: three persons mutually indwelling one another in joyful love. 

Why do we say God IS Father, Son and Spirit as One communion of love?  Simply because that is the way God has made himself known to us through Jesus within the gospel story. In this story, we see the Father acting through his Son and by his Spirit.  He acts to save us from ourselves and to bring us into communion sharing in his circle of love.  

We don’t attempt to know more about Trinity by leaping into abstract and speculative thinking about the three-in-one.  We always stay within the story through which God has revealed himself through Jesus and in his Spirit.  Why? Because God is not different in himself from who he is towards us in Jesus.  The only true God is the one we meet in Jesus.