The Trinity

Definitions first. This page will not make the Trinity obvious. It will stop two common mistakes: hearing “three gods,” and hearing “one person with three masks.”

The question

Christians who stand in the Nicene faith say: God is one. The Father is God, the Son is God, the Spirit is God. They are not three gods, and they are not one person taking turns. The church used “being” (or “essence”) for what is one, and “person” for Father, Son, and Spirit, who are distinct and who indwell one another. The words are fences around a confession. They are not a claim that we have comprehended God.

A fair statement of the objections

Muslims hear a threat to tawhid, the confession that God has no partners. Qur’an 4:171 and surah 112 are the usual places that concern is voiced. See tawhid and Christian monotheism. If a Christian answers by saying “it’s a mystery” and will not say what they are denying, the Muslim friend is right to think the oneness of God was waved away.

Jehovah’s Witnesses teach that Jehovah alone is Almighty God, that the Son is a created being, and that the holy spirit is God’s active force rather than a person. They are trying not to split God. The argument has to be about texts and about whether the Spirit speaks and can be lied to as a person, not about a diagram of a clover.

Latter-day Saints often accept “three” more readily than Nicene Christians expect. Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are one in purpose. The usual Latter-day Saint teaching, drawing on texts such as Doctrine and Covenants 130:22, presents them as three distinct beings. That is not the same sentence as Nicaea. See the Godhead. Do not say they are modalists, and do not say they are Nicene.

Atheist objections are often about coherence: can “one” and “three” be said together without cheating? Sometimes the Trinity is simply exhibit A that religious language does not cash out. Ask which worry it is.

A Christian starting point

Begin with the Shema. Deuteronomy 6:4 (1) is not an embarrassment for Trinitarians; it is the claim. Then show where Christian prayer and baptism actually put the Son and the Spirit. Matthew 28:19 (2) names Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in one name. John’s Gospel has the Word, who is God, with God in the beginning (John 1:1), and later has Jesus speaking of the Spirit as another advocate whom the Father will send (John 14–16) (3). Second Corinthians 13:14 (4) is a grace that already runs in three directions.

Say what you are not saying. You are not saying the Father died on the cross. You are not saying the Son is the Father with a different hat. You are not saying 1 + 1 + 1 = 1, which is a joke at the doctrine’s expense and not the doctrine. If a comparison helps, use it once and then drop it. Comparisons (water, a man who is son and father, the sun) have misled people for centuries.

Scripture to open together

• Deuteronomy 6:4 and Mark 12:29.
• Matthew 28:19.
• John 1:1–3, then a chapter from John 14–16 on the Spirit, not a single verse pulled out.
• 2 Corinthians 13:14.
• The creed of 381 (5), read aloud, so “God from God, light from light, true God from true God” is heard as a text and not as a rumor.

Keep reading

• The deity of Christ
• Tawhid and Christian monotheism
• John 1 and the Word
• The Godhead in Latter-day Saint teaching