This can only be if they share one essence. God is not one person who plays three different roles, as this illustration suggests. Abstract. the Trojans have advanced The answer must be no, because the Bible also indicates that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are distinct Persons. This strategy of "Trinity monotheism" has been developed by William Lane Craig. He says that while no analogy will ever be complete ("I'm slightly resistant to your term 'bad illustrations' because it suggests that some are good"), to give them up completely would be a mistake. Getyour copy of The Ultimate Guide to Christian Singleness and access to all of our eBooks. He is one Being in three Persons (centers of consciousness), not merely three roles. For if we deny this, we have denied Gods unity and affirmed that there is more than one being of God (i.e., that there is more than one God). Moksha 4. The fact that God has made himself close and present (immanent) does not negate the fact that he is also reigning in glorious, unapproachable light (transcendent) (1 Timothy 6:15-16). Are these just three different ways of looking at God, or simply ways of referring to three different roles that God plays? We all have a story. Have a correction or comment about this article? Join our new membership program on Patreon today. 5, 2023, learnreligions.com/how-can-god-be-three-things-712158. In addition to these texts, the others we mentioned above make clear that the Personhood of the Holy Spirit is distinct from the Personhood of the Son and the Father. No problem and sorry for the late reply I was answering other questions and wasn't paying attention to my notification, Why is the concept of Holy Trinity confusing for some Christians and non Christians alike. So God is one what but three whos.. Christianity is a monotheistic religion, which means that its adherents only acknowledge one deity. Christianity borrowed the idea from ancient Egyptians, making some significant changes along the way. As theologian and apologist Norman Geisler has explained it, while essence is what you are, person is who you are. 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. Partnering with urban churches to meet physical and spiritual needs. The Holy Spirit is designed to speak to us. "Understanding the Holy Trinity." 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. In ancient Egyptor Kemet, as it was known to its people at the timeone key concept was the relationship among three deities, Asar, Aset, and Heru. "God is one but not solitary.". COLUMN A 1. Theologian Steve Holmes, who has authored several books on the Trinity, says not even he has it entirely down. God has revealed himself to us. So what's the point in these illustrations? Therefore each of the Persons into whose name we are to be baptized must be deity. Their trinity god is 3 males. Even many early Christian baptisms were centered on an embrace of the Trinity. For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. Well this one falls short, too. To enjoy our website, you'll need to enable JavaScript in your web browser. The doctrine developed gradually over several centuries and through many controversies. Learn to develop your skills, desire and ability to join others on their spiritual journeys and take them closer to Jesus. In the baptism of Jesus, we see the Father speaking from heaven and the Spirit descending from heaven in the form of a dove as Jesus comes out of the water (Mark 1:10-11). Flashback to RE lessons at school. The Father, Son and the Holy Spirit aren't simply three functions of God, they are (say it with me now) three distinct persons. Someone please:(. In fact, it is precisely the continuing dialogue between the Father and the Son (Matthew 3:17; 17:5; John 5:19; 11:41-42; 17:1ff ) which furnishes the best evidence that they are distinct Persons with distinct centers of consciousness. The next step by which the transcendent God becomes self-conscious consists in the appearance in the divine nous of the divine world, the idea of the world in its individual forms as the content of the divine consciousness. The Bible is clear that all three Persons are each one hundred percent God. Learn how you can know God personally. . He's one man, but has three different functions.Unsurprisingly, this fails to encompass all that the Trinity is, either. An alternative solution was to interpret Father, Son, and Holy Spirit as three modes of the self-disclosure of the one God but not as distinct within the being of God itself. create tension? The doctrine of the Trinity is foundational to the Christian faith. (Most Americans today know them better by the names the Greeks gave them: Osiris, Isis, and Horus, respectively.). School Newsletter 28th April 2023. He is the way God revealed Himself to us in a way we could understand. Memory, Understanding, and Will. The doctrine of the Trinity has historically been described with seven biblical statements found through a systematic approach of studying the whole of Scripture: God is one, the Father is God, the Son is God, the Holy Spirit is God, the Father is not the Son, the Son is not the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit is not the Father.