Does anyone understand the trinity

There would only be a contradiction if we said that God is three in the same way that He is one. So a closer look at the fact that God is one in essence but three in person has helped to show why the Trinity is not a contradiction. But how does it show us why there is only one God instead of three? It is very simple:. All three Persons are one God because, as we saw above, they are all the same essence. This should make it clear why it is so important to understand that all three Persons are the same essence.

What we have seen so far provides a good basic understanding of the Trinity. But it is possible to go deeper. If we can understand more precisely what is meant by essence and person, how these two terms differ, and how they relate, we will then have a more complete understanding of the Trinity.

What does essence mean? As I said earlier, it means the same thing as being. To be even more precise, essence is what you are. Of course we are speaking by analogy here, for we cannot understand this in a physical way about God. Therefore it is often difficult to have a concrete definition of Person as we use it in regards to the Trinity. How do they relate? The relationship between essence and Person, then, is as follows.

These personal distinctions are modes of existence within the divine being, but are not divisions of the divine being. They are personal forms of existence other than a difference in being. As theologian and apologist Norman Geisler has explained it, while essence is what you are, person is who you are. Neither should we think of the Persons as being defined by attributes added on to the being of God. Wayne Grudem explains:. Rather, each person of the Trinity has all of the attributes of God, and no one Person has any attributes that are not possessed by the others.

On the other hand, we must say that the Persons are real, that they are not just different ways of looking at the one being of God There are many illustrations which have been offered to help us understand the Trinity. While there are some illustrations which are helpful, we should recognize that no illustration is perfect.

Unfortunately, there are many illustrations which are not simply imperfect, but in error. This explains how God can be both one and three. God is not one person who plays three different roles, as this illustration suggests. He is one Being in three Persons centers of consciousness , not merely three roles. This analogy ignores the personal distinctions within God and mitigates them to mere roles. The Trinity is first of all important because God is important.

To understand more fully what God is like is a way of honoring God. Further, we should allow the fact that God is triune to deepen our worship. We exist to worship God. Therefore we must always endeavor to deepen our worship of God — in truth as well as in our hearts. The Trinity has a very significant application to prayer. The general pattern of prayer in the Bible is to pray to the Father through the Son and in the Holy Spirit Ephesians Our fellowship with God should be enhanced by consciously knowing that we are relating to a tri-personal God!

Awareness of the distinct role that each Person of the Trinity has in our salvation can especially serve to give us greater comfort and appreciation for God in our prayers, as well as helping us to be specific in directing our prayers.

Nonetheless, while recognizing the distinct roles that each Person has, we should never think of their roles as so separate that the other Persons are not involved.

Rather, everything that one Person is involved in, the other two are also involved in, one way or another. Website: desiringgod.

The claim that Jesus came back to life after dying on the cross is a foundational part of the Christian faith, and historical evidence backs it up. Have you ever wondered what the resurrection of Jesus is, why Christians believe in it, and why it matters? This article has answers to those questions. One of the things we all have in common is that everyone dies. The three are one, as a nature, that is, not as person. Nevertheless, these three persons are not to be considered separable, since we believe that no one of them existed or at any time effected anything before the other, after the other, or without the other.

Even with that, it comes down to the idea that the Trinity is: God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit — three distinct persons that are one. Personally, I think the key to understanding the Trinity involves looking at the goal of marriage. Pope John Paul II gave us this idea. Think of it this way: when two people attempt marriage, they are attempting to become one; not figuratively, but literally.

When this married couple joins together sexually, they are enacting with their bodies what the sacrament of marriage is doing with their souls: making them one. In the sacramental marriage, each person completely empties himself or herself into the other, and this creates a dynamic between them; creating spiritual, emotional and even physical life. Side note: this is why marriage is a sacrament that occurs in a sacred place! As the Father has sent me, even so send I you.

In December Pope Paul VI and Patriarch Athenagoras of Constantinople revoked the excommunications of and called for an active pursuit of mutual understanding. Appropriation and Perichoresis are two ideas that are important in reconciling God's one-ness with the three-ness of God in human experience.

Appropriation teaches that all three persons of the Trinity do everything God does, but that it is appropriate to see some actions as being particularly associated with one specific person of the Trinity. So the Father is associated with creation and the Son with redemption, but all three persons are actually involved with these actions.

This is the idea that each of the persons of the Trinity shares completely in the life of the other two. Theologians say that each of the persons of the Trinity "interpenetrates" the others, so that the distinctions between the persons are preserved and the substance of God is not divided into three. The theologian Leonardo Boff described perichoresis as "the intimate and perfect inhabitation of one Person in the other," meaning that the three persons of the Trinity live in and relate to each other perfectly.

Many modern writers prefer to use the word indwelling to express the idea of perichoresis. They say there is a mutual indwelling of the persons of the Trinity.

All facets of divine activity are reflected in all three persons of the Trinity. They are dynamically intermingled. They may not be separated. The traditional statement of the doctrine of the Trinity is this: There are three persons within the Godhead; Father, Son and Holy Spirit. These three persons have equal status and are equally divine. But the word person in this definition doesn't mean person in any sense that modern people understand it - it's an ancient technical philosophical term, which originally meant the mask worn by actors playing parts in an ancient Greek play.

The Greek word was hypostases the singular term is hypostasis. The ancient writers said that there were three distinct hypostases in one ousia ousia is the word now translated as substance - see below. There's a hint here of a very important concept in the idea of the Trinity. Actors playing a part in a play do so in relationship to other members of the cast, and a key element of the doctrine of the Trinity is that the three persons of the Trinity are in relationship with one another.

But "person" to modern people means, at the very least, a separate centre of consciousness, and more usually, an individual human being. That is not what it means in the definition of the Trinity. The idea that the three persons of the Trinity are separate individuals is the heresy of tritheism. Unfortunately, modern theological translations of the word "persons" into phrases such as "distinct manners of subsisting" don't make things much clearer and that particular phrase, as it happens, sounds very like the heresy of modalism.

This word is used to describe the coming forth of one of the persons of the Trinity from another or from both the others.

The use of this word in statements of the Trinity is a reminder that there is movement and dynamic energy in the Christian concept of God. It comes from the Greek word ousia , which means "beingness", but it has a more restricted meaning in this context than it had had to the ancient Greek philosophers who coined the word. A substance is a thing which fully exists; a presence in the universe - so for example, a dog is a substance.

Although in the case of God this is not a substance made of matter. The key concept of substance is that of unity - it's not separate from the three persons of the Trinity, it's what makes them one. Search term:. Read more.

This page is best viewed in an up-to-date web browser with style sheets CSS enabled. While you will be able to view the content of this page in your current browser, you will not be able to get the full visual experience. Please consider upgrading your browser software or enabling style sheets CSS if you are able to do so.

This page has been archived and is no longer updated. Find out more about page archiving. The Trinity Last updated Bible and why Christians believe in the Trinity The Bible and why Christians believe in the Trinity Christianity adopted this complicated idea of God because it was the only way they could make sense of One God in the context of the events and teaching of the Bible. Keith Ward, Religion and Creation, Matthew Making use of the Trinity Is the Trinity a useful idea?

Karen Kilby. Gerald S. Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost; As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, World without end. Amen Trinitarian doxology. This came up time and time again. Jesus was so clear about his unique relationship with the Father. For he not only broke the Sabbath, he called God his Father, thereby making himself equal with God.

For all of eternity, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit have always been in relationship and communication with each other, yet not as three gods…as one God. The First Person in the Trinity is called Father. You cannot be called The Father unless you have a child.

And the same goes for the Second Person in the Trinity. You cannot be called The Son unless you have a Father. On earth, Jesus continued to talk to the Father, and the Father and Spirit continued to communicate with him.