Trinity
A proper definition
Jesus is the Revealer of Himself as God, the Son, and of God, the Father, and God, the Holy Spirit.
The Council of Nicea provided a definitive interpretation of the Sacred Scriptures against the interpretation given by the Arians. The Athanasian Creed dates to that era and explores and explains the doctrine in detail.
- Short definition
- "Three persons in one God."
What is three is persons.
What is one is being.
The three persons are all homoousios (Nicene Creed, Greek for "same substance") or consubstantial (Latin translation of homoousios, literally "substantial with [each other]").
How not to speak of the Trinity
God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit
I have no idea where this phrase comes from. It may be an evangelical formula. I never say anything like this in class, but I have seen it often enough on exams to suggest that it is a moderately popular way of approximating the doctrine of the Trinity.
Each of the Persons is God, not just the First Person; to think otherwise is to fall into the Arian heresy.
The proper way to speak of the eternal and consubstantial Persons is "God, the Father, God, the Son, and God, the Holy Spirit." The Father is God, the Son is God, and the Spirit is God--each Person is one and the same God and possesses all of the attributes of God in the same measure as the other two Persons. They are equal in eternity, omniscience, omnipotence, omnipresence, glory, beauty, truth, goodness, justice, mercy, and every other divine perfection. They differ from each other only in Person. We tell the Persons apart this way:
- the Father has no personal origin outside of Himself; he brings forth the Son and, with the Son, brings forth the Holy Spirit.
- the Son originates from the Father and, with the Father, brings forth the Holy Spirit.
- the Spirit originates from the Father and from the Son.
Three parts of God
God is one being and is infinitely simple.
Thinking of the Persons as slices of the divine pie is horribly wrong. God cannot be divided into "parts."
The Father is not 1/3 of God; He is God. So, too, with the Son and the Spirit.