," answered
Paganism. "One only," answered Judaism and Islam. "One in Trinity,"
answered Christianity.

So--_Christianity is a via media_ between limitless Polytheism and absolute
Monotheism. Professor Haeckel of Jena, in his hatred of Christianity,
instanced Mohammedanism as a better religion and scornfully called the
Christian religion "Polytheism." The definition is not altogether untrue.
Paganism was not wholly false. The Christian dogma of the Trinity in
relation to this world symbolically means unity in multitude. This dogma
expresses a principle, an idea, rather than a number. As we cannot define
God's being chemically, historically, psychologically, etc., how can we
hope to define Him mathematically? God is beyond numbers; He is beyond
scientific research; beyond all expression. _One in three_, that is
half-way to Polytheism and to Monotheism. _One in three_ gives the
substance of God's life and binds Him to His own work, the created world.

God's own life is dramatic internally, and externally (in relation to the
world). That is the real meaning of the dogma of the Trinity. God is
somehow one, and yet not one; rather He is a pluralistic unity. He can take
part in the human drama and still remain the God of the Universe. He can
suffer and still remain perfect. He can be omnipresent in the world and
still not be wholly immersed in it. "I cannot understand it; it is a
mystery to me," exclaimed Tolstoi. Certainly he could not understand it;
who could? We cannot understand our own beings. Modern biology discovered
that a human body consists of millions and millions of corpuscles, minute
organic cells which live their life and go their way unconscious of the
human person formed by themselves. New discoveries may open up new
problems, but the ancient mysteries about everything in the world continue
to be omnipresent. How could we have more knowledge about God except some
few glances, some imperfect allusions, some symbolical combinations?

However, lacking a clear and perfect understanding, we still feel that we
are not alone in the world. God is all round us like the atmosphere that we
breathe. The more we try to escape from this atmosphere, the closer it
seems to pervade us. Tolstoi felt this as strongly as the most orthodox
Fathers of the Church. Yet his doctrines on God, vague and pantheistic as
they are, slow to ascribe to God any traditional qualities and trying in
vain to invent new ones--his doctrines on God