Let’s see if we can answer many questions and objections.
Let’s begin.
I. Replies to Objections
A. Brief intro
The essence of the replies is that the tri-personal God living in complete oneness is the best description of God, the Triunity—three persons contained within one God.
1. Doesn’t this doctrine really come from later church fathers?
This doctrine is developed by great theologians like Athanasius (c. 296-373 AD) and Augustine (354-430 AD), but it was not invented by them. The New Testament was written to clarify pressing doctrinal and pastoral problems and issues that arose in the church.
Therefore, the New Testament authors, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, were not directed to develop the doctrine of the Trinity. Instead, they affirmed the full deity of Christ and the full deity and personhood of the Holy Spirit in verses throughout their writings, but not in a formal doctrine.
2. If there are three persons, why are there not three Gods?
The co-equal and distinct persons of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are not three Gods because they share the same essence in complete unity or oneness.
It is difficult for us humans to figure out because we do not share the same essence in unity.
For example, the patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are three distinct persons and beings. They do not share the same essence or being or divine attributes in close relations. Abraham may have been kinder than his son and grandson, and Jacob was more deceitful than Isaac. So they are not equal in their attributes.
However, the doctrine of the Trinity says that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit share the same being or essence, and this is where the human example of the three patriarchs and the divine nature must part company. Picture the triangle (three persons) in the circle (one God)
Thus, basic Christian doctrine teaches that one God exists in three persons: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, not in three Gods, which is called tritheism. Christians reject this doctrine.
3. However, I read Christians writing, “God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.” Doesn’t that really say there are three Gods?
No, it is simply saying that the Father is fully divine (God), the Son is fully divine (God), and the Spirit is fully divine (God). Just because the same word God appears three times in one grammatical human sentence does not mean there are three Gods. However, the persons of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are three and distinct, expressed in three different words (Father, Son and Spirit!). I wouldn’t mind it if we dropped that way of writing and just say: “The Father is full deity, the Son is full deity, and the Spirit is full deity.”
But the same and one word God simply indicates the same and one “Godness” of the three persons.
4. Still, though, 1 + 1 + 1 = 3. So isn’t belief in the Trinity irrational?
Those digits can only refer to the three persons within the one being God (triangle in a circle, again); those numbers do not refer to his essence, which is one and unified.
Better:
One Father + One Son + One Holy Spirit = Three Persons
I don’t like the numbers game, but since the objector has taken us down the path of using numbers to refute the unity of God, let’s use them nonetheless, to clarify the simplistic addition model.
Multiplication works better with integers:
1 x 1 x 1 = 1
In other words, three persons are united in one essence.
The exponent comes out the same:
13 = 1
The conclusion is the same: Three persons are united in one essence.
How about an infinite number of sets of things? This works better:
Infinity + infinity + infinity = infinity.
It works out like this:
Infinite God the Father + Infinite God the Son + Infinite God the Spirit = One Infinite God
Three infinite persons are united in one infinite being called God, not infinite Gods (plural).
Let’s say that we add an infinite number of red books to an infinite number of white books, and still add an infinite number of blue books to the red and white books. Despite adding these three sets of infinite numbers of books together, we have not augmented or increased infinity by even one book. Such is the mystery of infinity; we cannot figure it out.
However, these three mathematical analogies of the Trinity ultimately fail because, among other reasons, the three infinite sets of books have different properties, because they do not exist in perfect unity in one essence, and because we do not “add up” or even “multiply” the three living persons of the Trinity.
It is now clear that belief in the Trinity is not irrational, but transrational — above our puny minds to figure out, ultimately.
5. Doesn’t the doctrine of the Trinity entail contradictions?
Mysteries are not contradictions. Here are two examples of contradictions:
There is one God and there is not one God;
God is three persons and God is not three persons.
But the claim that the one God exists in three persons who possess the same divine essence in perfect unity does not entail a contradiction (Grudem p. 256).
There is no contradiction in having three persons in one essence, for the terms are different. God is one and only one in relation to his essence, and God is three in relation to his persons. These two relations are two different senses (Geisler p. 550).
The Trinity ultimately is a mystery, but it is revealed in Scripture, so all Bible-educated and Bible-believing Christians believe in it, even though they may not understand it fully.
6. Doesn’t the doctrine of the Trinity ultimately come from pagan myths?
The doctrine of the Trinity, properly understood, is found nowhere in mythology – not even close. Zeus, Poseidon, and Apollo and any other trio of gods from around the Greek and Roman world do not share all of the same attributes in perfect unity as one God. In fact, Greek myths go out of their way to keep these gods distinct as three gods and beings with their own special attributes. The Trinity has nothing to do with a family or pantheon of squabbling gods or separate divine beings.
This is polytheism, and Christians reject it.
7. Isn’t the Islamic belief in a single, one-person deity the simplest and best way to go?
Islam (and Judaism) teaches strict monotheism, like so:
1 = 1
At first glance that does appear simple and therefore the best option.
However, some Muslim sects believe the Quran is eternal and uncreated, and this poses problems for strict monotheism. But let’s set this issue aside.
Problems still emerge relationally.
1 = Lonely, isolated Allah
What was this Islamic deity doing all by himself in eternity past, before he made the heavens and the earth and the angels?
Louis Berkoff says this about isolated personalities, whether God or human:
Personality does not develop or exist in isolation, but only in association with other persons. Hence it is not possible to conceive of personality in God apart from an association of equal persons in Him. His contact with His creatures would not account for His personality any more than man’s contact with the animals would explain his personality. In virtue of the tri-personal existence of God there is an infinite fulness of divine life in Him. (pp. 84-85, emphasis original)
In other words, an isolated deity would have a deficient and short-changed personality. This is especially clear when we read in Scripture that humans are created in his image (Gen. 1:26-27). “It is not good for man to be alone” (Gen. 2:18). So living alone in isolation is not optimal for humans. Now what about God? No, we shouldn’t raise man up to the level of God, “but rather what appears as imperfect in man exists in infinite perfection in God” (Berkoff p. 84). God is not needy, but the living God existing in three persons is optimal, not a single-personal deity existing in lonely isolation.
8. Why didn’t Jesus or Paul or Peter just sit down and offer an extended teaching on the Trinity?
Let’s look at the beginning.
Deuteronomy 6:4 offers the famous shema: “Hear, O Israel, the LORD our God is one.” The Hebrew word for God is Elohim, and the -im ending indicates masculine plural. So it works out like this: Elohim (plurality) is one (unity). Plurality in unity is a perfect, boiled-down, beginning statement of the Triunity of God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit contained within one God.
Jesus repeats this phrase in Mark 12:29: “The Lord our God is one,” and Paul does the same in Gal. 3:20: “God is one.” Jesus said that affirmation in a Jewish context, and Paul in a polytheistic context. It makes sense that Jesus would wish to reach out to his fellow Jews, and Paul would wish to lead pagans away from their distorted view of the divine world.
Jesus did not even want some people to whom he ministered to know that he was the Messiah, by a formal announcement (Matt. 8:4; 12:16 // Mark 3:12; 7:36; 11:33 // Luke 5:34; 8:56). Even Peter had to receive special revelation to affirm that Jesus was the Messiah (Matt. 16:16; // Mark 8:29 // Luke 9:20). How much more would it have been difficult for the earliest Jews to accept his higher status, as God in the flesh? Also, the Gospel of John does show Jesus in his fullness (John 1:1-3; 8:58). Jesus said, “I and the Father are one” (John 10:30). That looks like a variation on the shema. And Jews found it difficult to accept, but his claims were true, nonetheless.
Paul writes that God was pleased have all his fullness dwell in Jesus (Col. 1:19) and the fullness of deity dwelled in bodily form (Col. 2:9). In Titus 2:13 Paul says the church is eagerly waiting for the appearing or the great God and Savior, Jesus Christ. There are other such passages.
Bottom line: Jesus and Paul and Peter had a more practical objective: proclaim the kingdom of God and salvation and solve church problems.
II. Reflections
A. Why is God so complicated?.
C. S. Lewis encourages us not to wish and beg for a shallow religion. In his book Mere Christianity, in the chapter “The Invasion” he discusses the Incarnation (God the Son becoming man), which can also apply to the Trinity.
He writes:
It is no good asking for a simple religion. After all, real things are not simple. They look simple, but they are not. The table I am sitting at looks simple: but ask a scientist to tell you what it is really made of—all about atoms and how the light waves rebound from them and hit my eye and what they do to the optic nerve and what it does to my brain—and, of course, you find that what we call “seeing a table” lands in mysteries and complications which you can hardly get to the end of.
God is knowable as far as he has revealed himself through Jesus Christ, the Scriptures, the Holy Spirit who lives in us, and other avenues like the creation. However, no one has seen God in all of his full essence and being, except Jesus (John 1:18). We humans down here on earth are limited by our five senses and our finite minds, so how can we figure out and calculate the pure nature of God? “We can know God truly and sufficiently, but never comprehensively” (EDT, p. 343).
B. Incomprehensibility
The nature of God is ultimately incomprehensible. One reason that I believe in the Triunity is precisely because this doctrine is ultimately beyond my puny brain to figure out. I could never have invented it.
I simply have to accept Scripture as it is, even when I don’t understand all of it.
I trust God in the teachings I do understand (e.g. God loves me and saved me), and that leads me to trust him in the ones that I don’t understand completely (the Trinity).
It is best to go from known and simple things to the lesser known and difficult things. For example, it is best to study astrophysics and send out space ships over time before landing a human on the moon. Gradual. But unlike the moon landing, we will never understand the Triunity fully.
From simple and clear teachings to the deeper teachings is best the best route to travel.
C. Summary
The deepest relationship between the three persons cannot be known by us in its fullest sense—it is not possible to contain the ocean in a thimble. But we can know him sufficient for our salvation and we can know him in truly—we know him in truth. But we cannot know him exhaustively—it would take eternity to accomplish it!
You already relate to the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. The articles on the Trinity at this website will help you put the doctrine together. Our God is Triunity—three persons in one essence, one God.
Get to know each person of the Trinity!
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