Question: Can you please explain the Trinity? Part 2

Answer submitted by Community Pastor Jae Alexander

In this second blog post I will briefly touch on some common misunderstandings/heresies about the Trinity. Before I do that, let’s review what the the orthodox definition of Trinity is:

“God is three persons in one essence.”

Maybe a simpler way of looking at this would be: In God there are three WHOS and one WHAT. The WHAT is exactly the same in the WHOS.

Now, the common misunderstandings/heresies fall into three basic categories.

1. Philosophical/Reasoning
2. Tritheism (a specific type of polytheism)
3. Modalism

As I discuss these I will be quoting a lot from a book called the Baker Encyclopedia of Christian Apologetics by Norman Geisler.

1. Philosophical or Reasoning misunderstandings about the Trinity.

The number one misunderstanding that I hear quite often from this point of view is that the Trinity is a contradiction in logic or reasoning. This is often leveled at Christians from Muslims, Orthodox Jews, and critics in general. However, there is no contradiction in the doctrine from a logic or reasoning standpoint. 

The philosophical law of non-contradiction informs us that something cannot be both true and false at the same time and in the same sense. 1

(A cannot be both A and non-A at the same time and in the same relationship.)

This is the fundamental law of all rational thought. Applied the the Trinity this can be shown by stating first of all what the Trinity is not. The Trinity is not the belief that God is three persons and only one person at the same time and in the same sense. That would be a contradiction. Rather, it is the belief that there are three persons in one nature. This is not contradictory because it makes a distinction between person and essence. Or, to put it terms of the law of non-contradiction, while God is one and many at the same time, he is not one and many in the same sense. He is one in the sense of his essence but many in the sense of his persons. God is one in his substance. The unity is in his essence (what God is), and the plurality is in God’s persons (how he relates within himself). 

This plurality of relationships is both internal and external. Within the Trinity each member relates to the others in certain ways. These are somewhat analogous to human relationships. The Bible’s description of Yahweh as Father and Jesus as Son says something of how the Son relates to the Father. Also, the Father sends the Spirit as a Messenger, and the Spirit is a Witness of the Son (John 14:26). These descriptions help us understand the functions within the unity of the Godhead. Each is fully God, each has his own work and interrelational theme with the other two. But what it is vital to remember that these three share the same essence, so that they unify as one Being. 2

Heresies are teaching that reject and attempt to replace orthodox views. They are the things of cults. The topic of the Trinity is subject to possible heresy. It happens when distinctions about God’s nature or persons are made into divisions or the distinctions about God’s person’s are ignored. He is what I mean. 

2. Tritheism (a specific type of polytheism)

The Bible declares emphatically: “The LORD our God, the LORD is one” (Deut. 6:4). Both Jesus (Mark 12:29) and the apostles repeat this formula in the New Testament (1 Cor. 8:4, 6). And early Christian creeds speak of Christ being one in “substance” or “essence” with God. The Athanasian Creed, reads: “We worship one God in Trinity, and Trinity in Unity; Neither confounding the Persons; nor divining the Substance (Essence).” So Christianity is a form of monotheism, believing in one and only one God. 3

No analogy of the Trinity is perfect, but some are better than others. First, some bad illustrations should be repudiated. The Trinity is not like a chain with three links. For these are three separate and separable parts. But God is neither separated nor separable. Neither is God like the same actor playing three different parts in a play. For God is simultaneously three persons, not one person playing three successive roles. 

Tritheism makes the One True God into three gods. That is simply not what the scriptures teach.

This heresy can be seen today in Mormon teaching with a twist. (They tend to lean into full blown polytheism, with a Trithiestic emphasis). 

3. Modalism

The heresy of modalism, also called Sabellianism, denies there are three distinct eternal persons in the Godhead. It believes that the so–called “persons” of the Trinity are modes of God substance, not distinct persons. Like water with its three states (liquid, solid, and gaseous), the Trinity is said to be only three different modes of the same essence.4 However, normally water is not in all three of these states at the same time, but God is always three persons at the same time.5 Trinitarians do not affirm a god with three different substances; they confess that God is three distinct persons in one substance.6 So, this analogy falls very short of teaching the orthodox meaning of the Trinity.

This heresy can be seen today in Oneness Pentecostalism or Jesus only movement churches. 

1. Geisler, Norman L. (2011-08-31). Baker Encyclopedia of Christian Apologetics (Baker Reference Library) (p. 732). Baker Book Group - A. Kindle Edition.
2. Geisler, Norman L. (2011-08-31). Baker Encyclopedia of Christian Apologetics (Baker Reference Library) (p. 732). Baker Book Group - A. Kindle Edition.
3. Geisler, Norman L. (2011-08-31). Baker Encyclopedia of Christian Apologetics (Baker Reference Library) (pp. 735-736). Baker Book Group - A. Kindle Edition. 
4. Geisler, Norman L. (2011-08-31). Baker Encyclopedia of Christian Apologetics (Baker Reference Library) (p. 735). Baker Book Group - A. Kindle Edition. 
5. Geisler, Norman L. (2011-08-31). Baker Encyclopedia of Christian Apologetics (Baker Reference Library) (p. 735). Baker Book Group - A. Kindle Edition. 
6. Geisler, Norman L. (2011-08-31). Baker Encyclopedia of Christian Apologetics (Baker Reference Library) (p. 735). Baker Book Group - A. Kindle Edition.