The Trinity is the Christian teaching that God exists eternally as three distinct persons: the Father, the Son (Jesus Christ), and the Holy Spirit. This is the idea that although there is one God, the one God is revealed in three persons. This article investigates the “uneasy solution” of the Trinity, shows that it is the solution of a problem, discusses the arguments in defense of the scriptural and historical foundations, defines the threeness and oneness of the three Persons, explains some of the analogies drawn to make this doctrine comprehensible and what they ultimately show, and presents some theological viewpoints on the “very heart of Christian monotheism.”
What is the basic meaning of the doctrine of the Trinity?
The classic explanation of the Trinity is that God’s simultaneously existing and shared divine essence or substance is a united being as one God, but exists as three persons, or “God the Father, God the Son” (Jesus Christ), and “God the Holy Spirit“. This is not the belief in three gods (polytheism) and it is not the belief that God simply appears in three different modes or forms at different times (modalism). Rather, the doctrine says that they believe in the one God (monotheism) and that the one God has a complexity to its godhead. Each Person is completely God and fully possesses the divine nature, while they are distinguished by their relations and roles within the deity and through their relationship to creation.
What does the Bible say about the doctrine of the Trinity?
While the Church believed that the doctrine is based in the Bible, the specific word “Trinity” does not exist in their scripture. There is no single Biblical passage that proves the doctrine is true. Rather, it is the explanation that comes from a number of passages that considered together show that the Father, Christ and the Holy Spirit are sentient and unique and yet are “the One God”. The Old Testament agrees so very strongly upon the unity of God, e.g., Deuteronomy 6:4, “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord.” This monotheistic base is key. New Testament writings describe Jesus Christ in terms fit for God in the Old Testament, called “God with us” (Matthew 1:23, cf Isaiah 7:14) and “My Lord and my God” (John 20:28). Jesus does divine things such as forgiving sins and accepting worship. So too, the Holy Spirit is spoken of as a Person separate from the Father and the Son, with attributes that belong only to deity such as omniscience (1 Corinthians 2:10-11) and omnipresence (Psalm 139:7-8), and actions that also would only be performed by deity—empowering believers and taking up residence in their lives. Passages displaying the simultaneous presence (and interaction) of all three are Jesus’ baptism (Matthew 3:16-17) when Jesus comes up from the water; the voice of the Father is heard and the Spirit descends and the great commission (Matthew 28:19) as believers are instructed to baptize “in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” (not “names,” which would imply greater than one God). The one name signifies one God, and then the three Persons are given. Other instances include the apostolic benediction in 2 Corinthians 13:14: the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit. These biblical precedents are the basis for later creedal statements of the doctrine of the Trinity.
How did the doctrine of the Trinity develop historically?
The development of doctrine on the relationship between God the Father and God the Son was a long and drawn-out process that took centuries and was the work of the Christian community as it sought to comprehend and render account of the data of scripture concerning the relationship of God the Son to the Father. The early Church struggled to understand how God could be both three and one at the same time: the Father; the convincing revelation of the Father that was Jesus; and the divine spirit presence of Jesus who is with us even now. Early Christian authors (the Church Fathers) such as Augustine of Hippo and Thomas Aquinas used philosophy as an integral part of their theological work. Writers such as Tertullian in the late 2nd and early 3rd centuries had described God as being “one substance and three persons as the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.” Origen delved into the relations between Members of the Godhead, but some of his thoughts were later deemed heretical. The doctrine was profoundly affected by major 3rd and 4th century theological controversies in the church. For instance Arianism taught that the Son was generated by the Father and hence subordinate and not truly God. This was contrary to the co-equality of the Persons. These were addressed, in the latter half of the 4th century, in the form of Arianism. The Nicene Creed, which resulted from this council, declared the Son to be of full divinity, saying that Jesus is “of one being with the Father.” Controversy over whether the Holy Spirit should be considered as fully divine as the Father and the Son led to the First Council of Constantinople in 381. This council reiterated and amplified the Nicene Creed, again affirming the divinity of the Holy Spirit. The Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed which has been taken as an authoritative creed for all time by many millions at least of professing Christians, set forth the one God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit, co-equal and co-eternal. Amendments and adjustments were made via the efforts of the theologians in the second, third and fourth ecumenical councils, especially in the struggle to state more exactly the divinity of Jesus Christ against the Arians and to maintain the divinity and the humanity in the one, personal Christ against Apollinarianism, Nestorianism, and Monophysitism, and in the distinction between the one divine substance (ousia) and the three subsisting persons (hypostases) of the Cappadocian Fathers (Basil the Great, Gregory of Nyssa, and Gregory of Nazianzus) in the 4th century. Fifth-century St. Augustine also did some very influential work, making psychology-like explorations of the Trinity as Mind, Knowledge, and Will, or Memory, Understanding, and Love in the human soul, while also admitting to the inadequacy of such analogies. This doctrine was solidified as a primary dogma of Christianity in these centuries of scriptural study, theological discussion and council decisions.
What is the nature of the Trinity and how do the three beings choose to live as one?
The three Persons of the Trinity are considered as being distinct in their relations with one another and roles, but are one in their single divine essence or nature. This fundamental paradox is at the heart of Trinitarian theology. Not as in independent individuals or aspects of God, though, but as distinct manners in which the one Godhead subsists. God the Father is believed to be the source or origin of both the Son and the Holy Spirit, both of whom are subservient to the Father in the Godhead. The Son is unique as the only-begotten, fully divine in the same nature as the Father. The Holy Spirit is unique as the one who eternally emanates from the Father (and in Western theology, from the Father and the Son, see Filioque) in Eastern Christianity. These relationships are immanent within the Godhead, and they are eternal. Notwithstanding these differences, the three Persons are one in various relations:
- Oneness of Substance: They possess the one divine substance or nature. There is but one God, and each subsisting Person is that one God.
- Unity of Will and Operation: God’s will is one, so that in creation, redemption, and preservation, one God operates, although it is true that sometimes, in certain operations, the Persons will be given especial prominence (e.g., creation to the Father, redemption to the Son, sanctification to the Spirit).
- Co-equality and Co-eternity: No one is better or worse: all are equal in power, glory, and Godhead. There wasn’t one Person who came before the others; they have eternally existed in relationship with the other.
The unity is frequently represented as a perichoresis or circumincession, a co-inherence of the three Persons in each other. They are in perfect unity and inhabitation of one another, so that to know one Person toward the other is to know the one God; to meet one Person is to meet the one God in that personal particular mode of existence. This co-presence of distinctness and unity lies at the heart of the Trinitarian faith.
What metaphors describe the Trinity and what are the problems with them?
Since then, many Christian theologians and philosophers have proposed various analogies to express the doctrine of the Trinity in a way that makes it understandable. But theologians are always quick to point out that all such analogy is finally inadequate, inadequate to the fullness of the truth of the divine reality. For illustrative purposes, they may be good, but they can’t be identified with the doctrine. There are a few everyday analogies:
- Water: Water is available in three states – water (liquid), ice (solid) and steam (gas). This analogy demonstrates one chemical (H₂O) having three separate states of being.
- Limitation: This is an example of modalism, where God shifts between modes, not Father, Son and Holy Spirit lived out eternally together. For example, ice is not both liquid water and steam at the same time as much as the Persons of the Trinity are God.
- Eggs: An egg consists of three parts: the shell, the white and the yolk.
- Objection: This analogy makes it sound as if the Persons are not God.
- Restriction: This analogy implies the Persons are components, but the doctrine is the three Persons are each fully God. It suggests also that they are not the same substance in exactly the same sense.
- Sun: We can consider the sun to be the star per se, light emitted by the star and the heat produced by the star. It also does not seem able to maintain personal coherence.
- Three-Leaf Clover: A clover has one stem with three unique leafs.
- Drawbacks: Also like egg, can imply that the Persons are parts, not be equally God.
- Psychological Analogies (Augustine): The human soul is comprised of memory, understanding, or will, or mind, knowledge, or love. These are not two different minds. They may be more effective at communicating sorts of clarity present in a Person – albeit not yet fully-formed in us: it’s not merely analogous if we can be holding to the relational existence of three distinct Persons (as, of course, the Persons remain in relation to each other with greater clarity than I remain in relation with a single “me”.
The ultimate restriction of all analogies is that they come from created reality which is finite and does not completely present the infinite and uncreated God. Analogy can show one or two aspects of the Trinity (unity or distinction, shared substance), but will necessarily distort the all-at-once truth that there is one God in three co-equal, co-eternal, distinct persons that are not parts. They may inadvertently come to support heresies like modalism (water) or partialism (clover, egg) if these are stretched beyond their intended use. In the end the doctrine is rooted in divine revelation, as that is realized in scripture and articulated in the theological tradition, rather than being wholly articulable by created models.
What are some past heresies regarding the Trinity?
A number of historic heresies have contested the orthodox view of the Trinity, usually by stressing one aspect of the doctrine (oneness or threeness) at the cost of the other, or by questioning the full divinity or genuine personhood of the Son or the Spirit. A knowledge of these heresies explains what the true doctrine aims to assert. Some common Trinitarian heresies are:
- Arianism: Jesus Christ was the first and highest of God’s creation, but not God himself from all eternity. He was considered to be subordinate to the Father, but was created prior to the creation of the world, and was not co-equal or co-eternal with the Father. This heresy was rejected by the Council of Nicea in 325 AD.
- Modalism (also Sabellianism or Patripassianism): God is one Person who has revealed Himself in three forms or modes, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. This refutes the coexistence and distinction of the three Persons. Patripassianism generally emphasizes the inference that if the Father and Son are the same mode, then the Father, too, was hung on the cross.
- Partialism: Believed each of God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are 1/3 of God. Such a view treats the Godhead as if the three persons are separate and divisible into parts, although they are fully God and the substance of God is undivided.
- Subordinationism: A large word that includes the view that the Son and/or the Spirit is at a lower level of nature/being than the Father (as opposed to merely role or relation – which is called economic subordinationism and is occasionally debated in orthodoxy). Arianism is a subordinationist theology.
- Tritheism: Believing that there are three distinct gods. Some would charge the Trinitarian creed with tritheism, but orthodox theology denies it, insisting in the belief of one God, not three. Tritheism is a contradiction of the unity of the Godhead.
These heresies point to the fine line that must be walked in asserting both the unity of God and the threeness of the Persons in orthodox Christianity. Church councils and theologians formulated creeds and doctrines specifically to counter such misunderstandings and to map out the limits of orthodox belief.
What is the theological situation within which the Trinitarian doctrine is situated?
The teaching of the Trinity makes up a central doctrine in most Christian denominations; however, the term “Trinity” is not found in Scripture, as it was not formally formulated until after the apostolic age. It is not some abstract idea on its own, but is fundamental to many other Christian doctrines. Trinitarian belief conditions how we think of God’s relation to the world and to human beings. Creation is viewed as the act of the one God—Father, Son, and Spirit. Salvation, by Jesus Christ, is believed to be the Son of God, who is God incarnate, to show mankind the purpose of life, and to provide an avenue by which humans can reconcile themselves to God the Father, to redeem us from our sin, as well as to show us the nature of God’s love. The work of sanctification – that is the way that believers are being altered to be more like Jesus – is ascribed to the Holy Spirit – The “Lord and Giver of Life,” who resides within them and leads them into truth – known as the third member of the Trinity. The doctrine is reflected in the hope that Christian worship, prayer, and reflection lead and are drawn into the social, economic, and political life of the church, in its witness toward God and for the good of the world. It also affects how the Christian community and relationships are perceived, sometimes understood as mirroring of the relational aspect of the Godhead. The doctrine of the Trinity gives the principles of how we think of God’s immanent presence and varying activity in the world and in the life of those who believe.
Does the Old Testament teach plurality in the Godhead?
Certainly, Christian theologians see in certain Old Testament passages indications of more than one person in the Godhead, hints of the Trinity, such as the Hebrew plural noun Elohim, used for God, the plural pronouns in verses like Genesis 1:26 (“Let us make man in our image”), and the “Angel of the Lord” who at times speaks as God. There is also mention of the Spirit of God.
Is the idea of the Trinity unique to Christianity?
Some religions may have multi-personal gods or divine revelations, but the Trinity of one God in three co-equal persons (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) as a cornerstone of their theology is a distinctly Christian idea.
How is the triune God connected with the idea of the love of God?
The theology implies that God’s self-existence is bound up with his self-giving love, eternally existing in the fellowship of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit and that this provides the basis for God’s outward movement toward the creation and humanity.
Is the Trinity comprehensible to human reason?
No, Christian theology typically teaches that the Trinity is a “mystery,” something that cannot be fully understood or explained through human reasoning alone, but rather must be believed by faith according to God’s self-disclosure.
How many ecumenical councils played major roles in the formation of the doctrine of the Trinity?
The doctrine was further developed in the West due to belief that its articles were incoherent, or were not transmitted from earliest times, and further refined in the East as the Trinitarian controversy led to the definition of the nature of God and the question of whether different persons could be said to experience the one God differently. Two particularly crucial councils were the First Council of Nicaea in 325 AD and the First Council of Constantinople in 381 AD. Additional clarification and refinement came from the second, third, and fourth ecumenical councils.
