Signatures of the Trinity

Everything that is exists by and through and unto the relationship between God the Father and Jesus, his Son. One of the great teachers of the ancient church, St. Augustine, had a very helpful way of talking about this. In a massive treatise on the Trinity, he introduced the term vestigium trinitatis—“vestiges of the Trinity.” Augustine thought that God—being the God he is—left traces, “vestiges” of his nature in the created order.

We might think of them as “signatures” of his character and being. Since the nature of God is Father and Son (in the Holy Spirit), one of the central…